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ESSAYS AND SKETCHES 

BY 

LEIGH HUNT 



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LEIGH HUNT 





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PREFACE 

In making this selection from the essays of Leigh Hunt, 
my aim has partly been to provide a companion volume to 
the volume of essays which I edited in 1887 for the Scott 
Library. I have therefore avoided using more than a very 
few of the essays which I had previously chosen, and I have 
used these because they seemed specially suitable for a book 
which is to be illustrated. Here, the illustrator will be seen 
collaborating with Leigh Hunt in his endeavour to bring 
vividly before us those aspects of streets, and shops, and 
theatres, and manners, which change from generation to 
generation, gaining, from generation to generation, something 
of the additional interest of things which already belong to 
the past. The triviality of yesterday becomes, to the reader 
of to-day, a part of history. 

In my selection of 1887 I permitted myself to edit 
Leigh Hunt with a severity which seems to me now to 
have been a little excessive. Most of Leigh Hunt's work 
was written hastily, for publication week by week ; and the 
consequences of that haste, and of that mode of publica- 
tion, are visible on every page. With all the instincts of a 
man of letters, Leigh Hunt was condemned to be, for the 
most part, a journalist of genius. Everything that he has 
left is a little unsatisfactory ; we must grope hither and 
thither, among crowding quotations and ragged references, 
for those evidences of " graceful fertility, of clearness, 



vi PREFACE 

lovingness, truthfulness, of childlike, open character," which 
Carlyle divined in the man, and which stamped him, 
before those exacting eyes, "a man of genius, in a very 
strict sense of that word, and in all senses which it bears 
or implies." It seemed to me, when I was making my 
first selection, that it would be doing a service to Leigh 
Hunt if I pruned away some of the excrescences which de- 
formed so much of his work. To-day I am inclined to 
think that it is best, under all circumstances, to leave things 
as they were written. Every man may then be his own 
critic, but the writer speaks for himself. 

In turning over the old volumes of Once a Week, some 
years ago, I came upon a poem of Mr George Meredith in 
the number for December 31, 1859. It was accompanied 
by a delicate and vigorous woodcut of Millais, who, I be- 
lieve, afterwards developed the sketch into a painting. The 
poem has never been reprinted, and as it tells in verse the 
story which Leigh Hunt told in prose in " The Mountain 
of the Two Lovers," it may be quoted here by way of 
commentary. 

THE CROWN OF LOVE. 

" O might I load my arms with thee, 
Like that young lover of Romance, 
Who loved and gain'd so gloriously 
The fair Princess of France ! 

Because he dared to love so high, 

He, bearing her dear weight, must speed 

To where the mountain touch'd the sky : 
So the proud King decreed. 

Unhalting he must bear her on, 

Nor pause a space to gather breath, 



PREFACE vii 

And on the height she would be won ; — 
And she was won in death ! 

Red the far summit flames with morn, 

While in the plain a glistening Court 
Surrounds the King who practised scorn 

Thro' such a mask of sport. 

She leans into his arms ; she lets 

Her lovely shape be clasp'd : he fares. 
God speed him whole ! The knights make bets : 

The ladies lift soft prayers. 

have you seen the deer at chase? 

O have you seen the wounded kite ? 
So boundingly he runs his race, 
So wavering grows his flight. 

' My lover ! linger here, and slake 
Thy thirst, or me thou wilt not win.' 

1 See'st thou the tumbled heavens ? they break ! 

They beckon us up, and in.' 

' Ah, hero-love ! unloose thy hold : 

O drop me like a cursed thing.' 
' See'st thou the crowded swards of gold ? 

They wave to us Rose and Ring.' 

' O death-white mouth ! O cast me down ! 

Thou diest ? Then with thee I die.' 
' See'st thou the angels with a Crown ? 

We twain have reach'd the sky.' " 

The greater part of the essays which follow are taken 
from The Indicator, The Companion and The Seer ; some from 
The Wishing- Cap Papers, a collection of essays from various 
magazines, made in America in 1872, and containing some 
emendations made by Leigh Hunt on his own copies of The 
Tatler and The Literary Examiner. . One is taken from 
Men, Women and Books (1849), and five are from the very 



viii PREFACE 

curious and interesting early volume of dramatic criticisms : 
Critical Essays on the London Theatres ( 1807). The essays 
from The Indicator, The Companion and The Seer are re- 
printed in most cases from the latest editions published dur- 
ing the lifetime of Leigh Hunt ; two, however, which he 
never reprinted, are taken from the original edition .of The 
Indicator (1819-21). 

ARTHUR SYMONS. 




C O NX ENTS 





PAGE 


A Flower for your Window 


I 


A Dusty Day ..... 


8 


The East Wind ..... 


H 


Autumnal Commencement of Fires 


20 


Country Little Known .... 


24 


Far Countries ..... 


27 


The Old Gentleman .... 


33 


The Old Lady ..... 


4i 


A Walk from Dulwich to Brockham 


45 


Sunday in the Suburbs .... 


77 


Advice to the Melancholy 


83 


Of the Sight of Shops . . . . . 


87 


A Nearer View of some of the Shops 


96 


Coffee-houses and Smoking 


105 


On Washerwomen ..... 


116 



xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Headpiece to Sunday in the Suburbs . 

Headpiece to Advice to the Melancholy 

Headpiece to Of the Sight of Shops . 

Tailpiece to Of the Sight of Shops 

" With an easy and endless exactitude of toe " 

Headpiece to Coffee-Houses and Smoking 

" Impatient waiting for the newspaper" 

Headpiece to On Washerwomen 

Headpiece to The Butcher 

" Walks through an endless round of noise" 

Headpiece to Fine Days in January and February 

Headpiece to Bad Weather 

Headpiece to Rainy-Day Poetry 

Headpiece to English and French Females . 

"They ran up to her and stood looking and talking" 

Headpiece to Poets' Houses .... 

Headpiece to On Receiving a Sprig of Laurel from Vaucluse 

" While they renew their addresses under the boughs" 

Headpiece to On Death and Burial 

Headpiece to May-Day 

Headpiece to Coaches 

" Imparting his knowledge" 

" An emblem of all the patience in creation " 

Headpiece to Going to the Play Again 

Headpiece to Madame Pasta . 

"Asa lover" .... 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Headpiece to Mr Kemble 

Headpiece to Mrs Siddons 

Headpiece to Mr Munden 

Headpiece to Mr Mathews 

Headpiece to On the Talking of Nonsense 

Headpiece to Bookbinding and " Heliodorus " 

Headpiece to A Treatise on Devils 

" Came up when he was called by art" 

Headpiece to The Mountain of the Two Lovers 

" I think of an English field " 

Headpiece to Twelfth Night . 



PAGE 

265 

277 
282 
286 

*93 
3OO 
309 
.3*5 

347 
355 
359 




NAMES OF FLOWERS. MYSTERY OF THEIR BEAUTY. 
In the window beside which we are writing this article, 
there is a geranium shining with its scarlet tops in the sun, 
the red of it being the more red for a background of lime- 
trees which are at the same time breathing and panting like 
airy plenitudes of joy, and developing their shifting depths 
of light and shade of russet brown and sunny inward gold. 

It seems to say, " Paint me!" So here it is. 

Every now and then some anxious fly comes near it : — 
we hear the sound of a bee, though we see none ; and upon 
looking closer at the flowers, we observe that some of the 
petals are transparent with the light, while others are left in 
shade; the leaves are equally adorned after their opaquer 
fashion, with those effects of the sky, showing their dark- 
brown rims ; and on one of them a red petal has fallen, 
where it lies on the brighter half of the shallow green cup, 
making its own red redder, and the green greener. We 
perceive, in imagination, the scent of those good-natured 
leaves, which allow you to carry off their perfume on your 
fingers ; for good-natured they are, in that respect above 



2 A FLOWER FOR YOUR WINDOW 

almost all plants, and fittest for the hospitalities of your 
rooms. The very feel of the leaf has a household warmth 
in it something analogous to clothing and comfort. 

Why does not everybody (who can afford it) have a 
geranium in his window, or some other flower ? It is very 
cheap ; its cheapness is next to nothing if you raise it from 
seed, or from a slip ; and it is a beauty and a companion. 
It sweetens the air, rejoices the eye, links you with nature 
and innocence, and is something to love. And if it cannot 
love you in return, it cannot hate you ; it cannot utter a 
hateful thing, even for your neglecting it ; for though it is 
all beauty, it has no vanity : and such being the case, and 
living as it does purely to do you good and afford you 
pleasure, how will you be able to neglect it ? 

But pray, if you choose a geranium, or possess but a 
few of them, let us persuade you to choose the scarlet kind, 
the " old original " geranium, and not a variety of it, — not 
one of the numerous diversities of red and white, blue and 
white, ivy-leaved, &c. Those are all beautiful, and very 
fit to vary a large collection ; but to prefer them to the 
originals of the race is to run the hazard of preferring the 
curious to the beautiful, and costliness to sound taste. It 
may be taken as a good general rule, that the most popular 
plants are the best ; for otherwise they would not have 
become such. And what the painters call " pure colours," 
are preferable to mixed ones, for reasons which Nature 
herself has given when she painted the sky of one colour, 
and the fields of another, and divided the rainbow itself 
into a few distinct hues, and made the red rose the queen 
of flowers. Variations of flowers are like variations in 
music, often beautiful as such, but almost always inferior to 
the theme on which they are founded, — the original air. 
And the rule holds good in beds of flowers, if they be not 
very large, or in any other small assemblage of them. Nay, 
the largest bed will look well, if of one beautiful colour ; 



A FLOWER FOR YOUR WINDOW 3 

while the most beautiful varieties may be inharmoniously 
mixed up. Contrast is a good thing, but we should first 
get a good sense of the thing to be contrasted, and we shall 
find this preferable to the contrast if we are not rich enough 
to have both in due measure. We do not in general love 
and honour any one single colour enough, and we are 
instinctively struck with a conviction to this effect when we 
see it abundantly set forth. The other day we saw a little 
garden-wall completely covered with nasturtiums, and felt 
how much more beautiful it was than if anything had been 
mixed with it. For the leaves, and the light and shade, 
offer variety enough. The rest is all richness and sim- 
plicity united, — which is the triumph of an intense percep- 
tion. Embower a cottage thickly and completely with 
nothing but roses, and nobody would desire the interference 
of another plant. 

Everything is handsome about the geranium, not except- 
ing its nnme ; which cannot be said of all flowers, though 
we get to love ugly words when associated with pleasing 
ideas. The word " geranium " is soft and elegant ; the 
meaning is poor, for it comes from a Greek word signify- 
ing a crane, the fruit having a form resembling that of a 
crane's head or bill. Crane's-bill is the English name of 
Geranium ; though the learned appellation has superseded 
the vernacular. But what a reason for naming the flower ! 
as if the fruit were anything in comparison, or any one 
cared about it. Such distinctions, it is true, are useful to 
botanists ; but as plenty of learned names are sure to be 
reserved for the freemasonry of the science, it would be 
better for the world at large to invent joyous and beautiful 
names for these images of joy and beauty. In some in- 
stances, we have them ; such as heart's-ease, honeysuckle, 
marigold, mignonette (little darling), daisy (day's-eye), 
etc. And many flowers are so lovely, and have associated 
names otherwise unmeaning so pleasantly with one's 



4 A FLOWER FOR YOUR WINDOW 

memory, that no new ones would sound so well, or seem 
even to have such proper significations. In pronouncing 
the words, lilies, roses, pinks, tulips, jonquils, we see the 
things themselves, and seem to taste all their beauty and 
sweetness. " Pink," is a harsh petty word in itself, and 
yet assuredly it does not seem so ; for in the word we 
have the flower. It would be difficult to persuade our- 
selves that the word rose is not very beautiful. " Pea " is 
a poor Chinese-like monosyllable, and "Briar" is rough 
and fierce, as it ought to be ; but when we think of Sweet- 
pea and Sweet-briar, the words appear quite worthy of their 
epithets. The poor monosyllable becomes rich in sweet- 
ness and appropriation ; the rough dissyllable also ; and the 
sweeter for its contrast. But what can be said in behalf 
of liver-wort, blood-wort, dragon's head, devil's bit, and 
devil in a bush ? There was a charming line in some verses 
in last week's London Journal, written by a lady. 

I've marr'd your blisses, 

Those sweete kisses 
That the young breeze so loved yesterdaye ! 

I've seen ye sighing, 
Now ye're dying ; — 

Hoiv could I take your prettie lives atvay ? 

But you could not say this to dragon's head and devil's 

bit— 

O dragon's head, devil's bit, blood-wort, — say, 
How could I take your pretty lives away? 

This would be like Dryden's version of the pig-squeak- 
ing in Chaucer — 

" Poor swine! as if their pretty hearts would break." 

The names of flowers in general among the polite, are 
neither pretty in themselves, nor give us information. The 
country people are apt to do them more justice. Goldy- 
locks, ladies'-fingers, bright-eye, rose-a-rubie, shepherd's- 



A FLOWER FOR YOUR WINDOW 5 

clock, shepherd' s-purse, sauce-alone, scarlet runners, sops- 
in-wine, sweet-william, etc., give us some ideas either use- 
ful or pleasant. But from the peasantry also come many 
uncongenial names, as bad as those of the botanists. Some 
of the latter are handsome as well as learned, have mean- 
ings easily found out by a little reading or scholarship, and 
are taking their place accordingly in popular nomenclatures : 
as amaranth, adonis, arbutus, asphodel, etc., but many others 
are as ugly as they are far-fetched, such as colchicum, 
tagetes, yucca, ixia, mesembryanthemum ; and as to the 
Adansonias, Browallias, Koempferias, John Tomkinsias, or 
whatever the personal names may be that are bestowed at 
the botanical font by their proud discoverers or godfathers, 
we have a respect for botanists and their pursuits, and wish 
them all sorts of " little immortalities " except these : 
unless they could unite them with something illustrative of 
the flower as well as themselves. A few, certainly, we 
should not like to displace, Browallia for one, which was 
given to a Peruvian flower by Linnasus, in honour of a friend 
of his of the name of Browall ; but the name should have 
included some idea of the thing named. The Browallia 
is remarkable for its brilliancy. " We cannot," says Mr 
Curtis, " do it justice by any colours we have." ] Now 
why not have called it Browall's Beauty, or Browall's 
Inimitable ? The other day we were admiring an 
enormously beautiful apple, and were told it was called 
" Kirk's Admirable" after the gardener who raised it. 
We felt the propriety of this name directly. It was 
altogether to the purpose. There was use and beauty 
together — the name of the raiser and the excellence of the 
fruit raised. It is a pity that all fruits and flowers, and 
animals too, except those with good names, could not be 

1 We learn this from the Flora Domestica, an elegant and poetry- 
loving book, specially intended for cultivators of flowers at 
home. 



6 A FLOWER FOR YOUR WINDOW 

passed in review before somebody with a genius for 
christening, as the creatures did before Adam in Paradise, 
and so have new names given them, worthy of their 
creation. 

Suppose flowers themselves were new ! Suppose they 
had just come into the world, a sweet reward for some new 
goodness : and that we had not yet seen them quite 
developed ; that they were in the act of growing ; had just 
issued with their green stalks out of the ground, and 
engaged the attention of the curious. Imagine what we 
should feel when we saw the first lateral stem bearing off 
from the main one, or putting forth a leaf. How we 
should watch the leaf gradually unfolding its little graceful 
hand ; then another, then another ; then the main stalk 
rising and producing more ; then one of them giving 
indications of an astonishing novelty, a bud ! then this 
mysterious, lovely bud gradually unfolding like the leaf, 
amazing us, enchanting us, almost alarming us with delight, 
as if we knew not what enchantment were to ensue : till at 
length, in all its fairy beauty, and odorous voluptuousness, 
and mysterious elaboration of tender and living sculpture, 
shone forth 

" the bright consummate flower ! " 

Yet this phenomenon, to a mind of any thought and 
lovingness, is what may be said to take place every day ; 
for the commonest objects are only wonders at which habit 
has made us cease to wonder, and the marvellousness of which 
we may renew at pleasure, by taking thought. Last spring, 
walking near some cultivated grounds, and seeing a multi- 
tude of green stalks peeping forth, we amused ourselves 
with likening them to the plumes or other headgear of 
fairies, and wondering what faces might ensue ; and from 
this exercise of the fancy, we fell to considering how true, 
and not merely fanciful, those speculations were ; what a 



A FLOWER FOR YOUR WINDOW 7 

perpetual reproduction of the marvellous was carried on by 
Nature ; how utterly ignorant we were of the causes of the 
least and most disesteemed of the commonest vegetables ; 
and what a quantity of life, and beauty, and mystery, and 
use, and enjoyment, was to be found in them, composed out 
of all sorts of elements, and shaped as if by the hands of 
fairies. What workmanship, with no apparent workman ! 
What consummate elegance, though the result was to be 
nothing (as we call it) but a radish or an onion, and these 
were to be consumed, or thrown away by millions ! A 
rough tree grows up, and at the tips of his rugged and dark 
fingers he puts forth, — round, smooth, shining, and hanging 
delicately, — the golden apple, or the cheek-like beauty of 
the peach. The other day we were in a garden where 
Indian corn was growing, and some of the cobs were 
plucked to show us. First one leaf or sheaf was picked 
off, then another, then another, then a fourth, and so on, as 
if a fruitseller was unpacking fruit out of papers ; and at 
last we came, inside, to the grains of the corn, packed up 
into cucumber-shapes of pale gold, and each of them 
pressed and flattened against each other, as if some human 
hand had been doing it in the caverns of the earth. But 
What Hand ! 

The same that made the poor yet rich hand (for is it not 
his workmanship also?) that is tracing these marvelting 
lines, and which if it does not tremble to write them, it is 
because Love sustains, and because the heart also is a flower 
which has a right to be tranquil in the garden of the All- 
Wise. 




A. DUSTY DAY 



Among the " Miseries of Human Life," as a wit pleasantly 
entitled them, there are few, while the rascal is about it, 
worse than a Great Cloud of Dust, coming upon you in 
street or road, you having no means of escape, and the 
carriages, or flock of sheep, evidently being bent on impart- 
ing to you a full share of their besetting horror. The road 
is too narrow to leave you a choice, even if it had two path- 
ways, which it has not : — the day is hot ; the wind is 
whisking ; you have come out in stockings instead of boots, 
not being aware that you were occasionally to have two 
feet depth of dust to walk in : — now, now the dust is on 
you, — you are enveloped, — you are blind ; you have to 
hold your hat on against the wind : the carriages grind by, 
or the sheep go pattering along, baaing through all the notes 
of their poor gamut ; perhaps carriages and sheep are to- 
gether, the latter eschewing the horses' legs, and the 
shepherd's dog driving against your own, and careering 
over the woolly backs : — Whew ! What a dusting ! What 
a blinding ! What a whirl ! The noise decreases ; you 



A DUSTY DAY 9 

stop ; you look about you ; gathering up your hat, coat, 
and faculties, after apologising to the gentleman against 
whom you have "lumped," and who does not look a bit 
the happier for your apology. The dust is in your eyes, in 
your hair, in your shoes and stockings, in your neck-cloth, 
in your mouth. You grind your teeth in dismay, and find 
them gritty. 

Perhaps another carriage is coming ; and you, finding 
yourself in the middle of the road, and being resolved to be 
master of, at least, this inferior horror, turn about towards 
the wall or paling, and propose to make your way accord- 
ingly, and have the dust behind your back instead of in 
front ; when lo ! you begin sneezing, and cannot see. You 
have taken involuntary snuff. 

Or you suddenly discern a street, down which you can 
turn, which you do with rapture, thinking to get out of 
wind and dust at once ; when, unfortunately, you discover 
that the wind is veering to all points of the compass, and 
that, instead of avoiding the dust, there is a ready-made 
and intense collection of it, then in the act of being swept 
into your eyes by the attendants on a dust-cart ! 

The reader knows what sort of a day we speak of. It 
is all dusty ; — the windows are dusty ; the people are 
dusty ; the hedges in the roads are horribly dusty, — pitiably, 
— you think they must feel it ; shoes and boots are like a 
baker's : men on horseback eat and drink dust ; coachmen 
sit screwing up their eyes ; the gardener finds his spade slip 
into the ground, fetching up smooth portions of earth, all 
made of dust. What is the poor pedestrian to do? 

To think of something superior to the dust, — whether 
grave or gay. This is the secret of being master of any 
ordinary, and of much extraordinary trouble : — bring a 
better idea upon it, and it is hard if the greater thought 
does not do something against the less. When we meet 
with any very unpleasant person, to whose ways we cannot 



to A DUSTY DAY 

suddenly reconcile ourselves, we think of some delightful 
friend, perhaps two hundred miles off, — in Northumber- 
land, or in Wales. When dust threatens to blind us, we 
shut our eyes to the disaster, and contrive to philosophise a 
bit even then. 

" Oh, but it is not worth while doing that." 

Good. If so, there is nothing to do but to be as jovial 
as the dust itself, and take all gaily. Indeed, this is the 
philosophy we speak of. 

" And yet the dust is annoying too. ,, 

Well — take then just as much good sense as you require 
for the occasion. Think of a jest ; think of a bit of verse ; 
think of the dog you saw just now, coming out of the pond, 
and frightening the dandy in his new trousers. But at all 
events don't let your temper be mastered by such a thing as 
a cloud of dust. It will show, either that you have a very 
infirm temper indeed, or no ideas in your head. 

On all occasions in life, great or small, you may be the 
worse for them, or the better. You may be made the 
weaker or the stronger by them ; ay, even by so small a 
thing as a little dust. 

When the famous Arbuthnot was getting into his carriage 
one day, he was beset with dust. What did he do ? Damn 
the dust or the coachman ? No ; that was not his fashion. 
He was a wit, and a good-natured man ; so he fell to 
making an epigram, which he sent to his friends. It was 
founded on scientific knowledge, and consisted of the fol- 
lowing pleasant exaggeration : — 

ON A DUbTY DAY. 

The dust in smaller particles arose, 
Than those which fluid bodies do compose. 
Contraries in extremes do often meet ; 
It ivas so dry that you might call it ivet. 

Dust at a distance sometimes takes a burnished or tawny 
aspect in the sun, almost as handsome as the great yellow 



A DUSTY DAY n 

smoke out of breweries ; and you may amuse your fancy 
with thinking of the clouds that precede armies in the old 
books of poetry, — the spears gleaming out, — the noise of 
the throng growing on the ear, — and, at length, horses 
emerging, and helmets and flags, — the Lion of King 
Richard, or the Lilies of France. 

Or you may think of some better and more harmless 
palm of victory, "not without dust" {paima non sine 
pufoere) ; dust, such as Horace says the horsemen of 
antiquity liked to kick up at the Olympic games, or as he 
more elegantly phrases it, " collect " (collegisse juvat ; — 
which a punster of our acquaintance translated, " kicking up 
a dust at college") ; or if you are in a very philosophic 
vein indeed, you may think of man's derivation from dust, 
and his return to it, redeeming your thoughts from gloom 
by the hopes beyond dust, and by the graces which poetry 
and the affections have shed upon it in this life, like flowers 
upon graves, — lamenting with the tender Petrarch, that 
" those eyes of which he spoke so warmly," and that 
golden hair, and " the lightning of that angel smile," and 
all those other beauties which made him a lover " marked 
out from among men" — a being abstracted "from the rest 
of his species," are now " a little dust, without a 
feeling "— 

" Poca polvere son che nulla sente " — 

or repeating that beautiful lyric of the last of the Shak- 
spearian men, Shirley, which they say touched even the 
thoughtless bosom of Charles the Second : — 

death's final conquest. 

The glories of our birth and 6tate 

Are shadows, not substantial things : 

There is no armour against fate ; 
Death lays his icy hand on kings ; 



iz A DUSTY DAY 

Sceptre and crown 

Must tumble down, 
And in the dust be equal made 
With the poor crooked scythe and spade. 

Some men with swords may reap the field 
And plant fresh laurels where they kill : 
But their strong nerves at last must yield, 
They tame but one another still. 
Early or late 
They stoop to fate, 
And must give up their murmuring breath, 
When they ', pale captives, creep to death. 

The garlands wither on your brow, 

Then boast no more your mighty deeds ; 
Upon death's purple altar now 
See where the victor-victim bleeds : 
All heads must come 
To the cold tomb : 
Only the actions of the just 
Smell siveet, and blossom in the dust. 

Most true; but with the leave of the fine poet (which 
he would gladly have conceded to us), Death's conquest 
is not " final " ; for Heaven triumphs over him, and Love 
too, and Poetry ; and thus we can get through the cloud 
even of his dust, and shake it, in aspiration, from our wings. 
Besides, we know not, with any exactitude, what or who 
Death is, or whether there is any such personage, even in 
his negative sense, except inasmuch as he is a gentle voice, 
calling upon us to go some journey ; for the very dust 
that he is supposed to deal in is alive ; is the cradle of 
other beings and vegetation ; nay, its least particle belongs 
to a mighty life ; — is planetary, — is part of our star, — is the 
stuff of which the worlds are made, that roll and rejoice 
round the sun. 

Of these or the like reflections, serious or otherwise, 
are the cogitations of the true pedestrian composed ; — such 



A DUSTY DAY 



! 3 



are the weapons with which he triumphs over the most 
hostile of his clouds, whether material or metaphorical ; 
and, at the end of his dusty walk, he beholdeth, in 
beautiful perspective, the towel, and the basin and water, 
with which he will render his eyes, cheeks and faculties, 
as cool and fresh, as if no dust had touched them ; nay, 
more so, for the contrast. Never forget that secret of the 
reconcilements of this life. To sit down, newly washed 
and dressed, after a dusty journey, and hear that dinner 
is to be ready "in ten minutes," is a satisfaction — a crown- 
ing and measureless content " — which we hope no one 
will enjoy who does not allow fair play between the harm- 
less lights and shadows of existence, and treat his dust 
with respect. We defy him to enjoy it, at any rate, like 
those who do. His ill-temper, somehow or other, will 
rise in retribution against him, and find dust on his saddle 
of mutton. 



THE EAST-WIND 

Did anybody ever hear of the East- Wind when he was 
a boy ? We remember no such thing. We never heard a 
word about it, all the time we were at school. There 
was the schoolmaster with his ferula, but there was no 
East- Wind. Our elders might have talked about it, but 
such calamities of theirs are inaudible in the ears of the 
juvenile. A fine day was a fine day, let the wind be in 
what quarter it might. While writing this article, we hear 
everybody complaining, that the fine weather is polluted by 
the presence of the East- Wind. It has lasted so long as 
to force itself upon people's attention. The ladies confess 
their exasperation with it, for making free without being 
agreeable; and as ladies' quarrels are to be taken up, and 
there is no other way of grappling with this invisible 
enemy, we have put ourselves in a state of Editorial 
resentment, and have resolved to write an article against it. 
The winds are among the most mysterious of the opera- 
tions of the elements. We know not whence they come, 
or whither they go,— how they spring up, or how fall,— 
why they prevail so long, after such and such a fashion, in 
certain quarters ; nor, above all, why some of them should 
be at once so lasting and apparently so pernicious. We 
know some of their uses ; but there is a great deal about 
them we do not know, and it is difficult to put them to 
the question. As the sailor said of the ghosts, " we do not 
understand their tackle." What is very curious is, there seems 
to be one of them which prevails in some particular quarter, and 
has a character for malignity. In the South there is the 



THE EAST-WIND 15 

Scirocco, an ugly customer, dark, close, suffocating, making 
melancholy ; which blots the sky, and dejects the spirits of 
the most lively. In the Oriental parts of the earth, there is 
the Tifoon, supposed by some to be the Typhon, or Evil 
Principle of the ancients ; and in Europe we have the 
East- Wind, whom the ancients reckoned among the Sons of 
Typhon. The winds, Mr Keightley tells us, were 
divided by the Greeks into wholesome and noxious ; the 
former of which, Boreas (North-Wind), Zephyrus (West- 
Wind), and Notus (South- Wind), were, according to 
Hesiod, the children of Astrasus (Starry) and Eos 
(Da<wn). The other winds, he says (probably meaning 
only those who blow from the East), are the race of 
Typhoeus, whom he describes as the last and most terrible 
child of earth. In Greece, as over the rest of Europe, 
the East- Wind was pernicious." 

In England, the East- Wind is accounted pernicious if it 
last long ; and it is calculated, we believe, that it blows 
during three parts even of our fine weather. We have 
known a single blast of it blight a long row of plants in a 
greenhouse. Its effects upon the vegetable creation are 
sure to be visible if it last any time ; and it puts invalids 
into a very unpleasant state, by drying the pores of the skin, 
and thus giving activity to those numerous internal dis- 
orders, of which none are more painful than what the 
moderns call nervousness, and our fathers understood by 
the name of the Vapours or the " Spleen," which, as 
Shenstone observed, is often little else than obstructed 
perspiration. An irritable poet exclaimed — 

" Scarce in a showerless day the heavens indulge 
Our melting clime, except the baleful East 
Withers the tender spring, and sourly checks 
The fancy of the year. Our fathers talk'd 
Of summers, balmy airs, and skies serene : 
Good Heaven ! for what unexpiated crimes 
This dismal change?" 



16 THE EAST-WIND 

This terrible question we shall answer presently. Mean- 
time, the suffering poet may be allowed to have been a little 
irritated. It is certainly provoking to have this invisible 
enemy invading a whole nation at his will, and sending 
among us, for weeks together, his impertinent and cutting 
influence, drying up our skins, blowing dust in our eyes, 
contradicting our sunshine, smoking our suburbs, behaving 
boisterously to our women, aggravating our scolds, wither- 
ing up our old gentlemen and ladies, nullifying the respite 
from smoke at Bow, perplexing our rooms between hot and 
cold, closing up our windows, exasperating our rheumatisms, 
basely treating the wounds of our old soldiers, spoiling our 
gardens, preventing our voyages, assisting thereby our Bow 
Street runners, hurting our tempers, increasing our melan- 
cholies, deteriorating our night-airs, showing our wives' 
ankles, disordering our little children, not being good for 
our beasts, perplexing our pantaloons (to know which to 
put on), deranging our ringlets, scarifying our eyes, thinning 
our apple-tarts, endangering our dances, getting damned our 
weathercocks, barbarizing our creditors, incapacitating our 
debtors, obstructing all moist processes in the arts, hinder- 
ing our astronomers, 1 tiring our editors, and endangering 
our sales. 

The poet asks what crimes could have brought upon us 
the evils of our climate ? He should ask the schoolboy 
that runs about, the gipsy who laughs at the climate, or 
the ghost of some old English yeoman, before taxes and 
sedentary living abounded. An East- Wind, like every 
other evil, except folly and ill intention, is found, when 
properly grappled with, to be not only no evil, but a good, 
at least a negative one, sometimes a positive ; and even 
folly and ill intention are but the mistakes of a community 
in its progress from bad to good. How evil comes at all, 

1 During East-Winds astronomers are unable to pursue their 
observations, on account of a certain hazy motion in the air. 





T 



Xlurtir>^ our bompcrj- 



THE EAST-WIND 19 

we cannot say. It suffices us to believe, that it is in its 
nature fugitive ; and that it is the nature of good, when good 
returns, to outlast it beyond all calculation. If we led the 
natural lives to which we hope and believe that the advance 
of knowledge and comfort will bring us round, we should 
feel the East- Wind as little as the gipsies do : it would be 
the same refreshment to us that it is to the glowing school- 
boy, after his exercise ; and as to nipping our fruits and 
flowers, some living creature makes a dish of them, if we do 
not. With these considerations, we should be well content 
to recognise the concordla discors that harmonises the inani- 
mate creation. If it were not for the East- Wind in this 
country, we should probably have too much wet. Our 
winters would not dry up ; our June fields would be im- 
passable : we should not be able to enjoy the West- Wind 
itself, the Zephyr with its lap full of flowers. And upon 
the supposition that there is no peril in the East-Wind that 
may not ultimately be nullified, we need not trouble our- 
selves with the question, why the danger of excessive 
moisture must be counteracted by a wind full of dryness. 
All the excesses of the elements will one day be pastime, 
for the healthy arms and discerning faculties of discovering 
man. 

And so we finish our vituperations in the way in which 
such things ought generally to be finished, with a discovery 
that the fault objected to is in ourselves, and renewed 
admiration of the abundance of promise in all the works 
of nature. 




AUTUMNAL COMMENCEMENT 
OF FIRES 



How pleasant it is to have fires again ! We have not 
time to regret summer, when the cold fogs begin to force 
us upon the necessity of a new kind of warmth ; — a warmth 
not so fine as sunshine, but, as manners go, more sociable. 
The English get together over their fires, as the Italians 
do in their summer-shade. We do not enjoy our sunshine 
as we ought ; our climate seems to render us almost un- 
aware that the weather is fine, when it really becomes so : 
but for the same reason, we make as much of our winter, 
as the anti-social habits that have grown upon us from 
other causes will allow. And for a similar reason, the 
southern European is unprepared for a cold day. The 
houses in many parts of Italy are summer-houses, unpre- 
pared for winter ; so that when a fit of cold weather comes, 
the dismayed inhabitant, walking and shivering about with 



AUTUMNAL FIRES 21 

a little brazier in his hands, presents an awkward image of 
insufficiency and perplexity. A few of our fogs, shutting 
up the sight of everything out of doors, and making the 
trees and the eaves of the houses drip like rain, would ad- 
monish him to get warm in good earnest. If " the web of 
our life" is always to be " of a mingled yarn," a good 
warm hearth-rug is not the worst part of the manufacture. 

Here we are then again, with our fire before us, and our 
books on each side. What shall we do ? Shall we take 
out a Life of somebody, or a Theocritus, or Petrarch, or 
Ariosto, or Montaigne, or Marcus Aurelius, or Moliere, or 
Shakspeare, who includes them all ? Or shall we read an 
engraving from Poussin or Raphael ? £ Or shall we sit with 
tilted chairs, planting our wrists upon our knees, and toast- 
ing the up-turned palms of our hands, while we discourse 
of manners and of man's heart and hopes, with at least a 
sincerity, a good intention, and good - nature, that shall 
warrant what we say with the sincere, the good-intentioned, 
and the good-natured ? 

Ah — take care. You see what that old-looking saucer 
is, with a handle to it ? It is a venerable piece of earthen- 
ware, which may have been worth, to an Athenian, about 
twopence ; but to an author, is worth a great deal more 
than ever he could — deny for it. And yet he would deny 
it too. It will fetch his imagination more than ever it 
fetched potter or penny-maker. Its little shallow circle 
overflows for him with the milk and honey of a thousand 
pleasant associations. This is one of the uses of having 
mantel-pieces. You may often see on no very rich mantel- 
piece a representative body of all the elements physical and 
intellectual — a shell Tor the sea, a stuffed bird or some 
feathers for the air, a curious piece of mineral for the earth, 
a glass of water with some flowers in it for the visible pro- 
cess of creation, — a cast from sculpture for the mind of 
man ; — and underneath all, is the bright and ever-springing 



11 AUTUMNAL FIRES 

fire, running up through them heavenwards, like hope 
through materiality. We like to have any little curiosity 
of the mantel-piece kind within our reach and inspection. 
For the same reason, we like a small study, where we are 
almost in contact with our books. We like to feel them 
about us ; — to be in the arms of our mistress Philosophy, 
rather than see her at a distance. To have a huge apart- 
ment for a study is like lying in the great bed at Ware, or 
being snug on a mile-stone upon Hounslow Heath. It 
is space and physical activity, not repose and concentration. 
It is fit only for grandeur and ostentation — for those who 
have secretaries, and are to be approached like gods in a 
temple. The Archbishop of Toledo, no doubt, wrote his 
homilies in a room ninety feet long. The Marquis Mari- 
alva must have been approached by Gil Bias through whole 
ranks of glittering authors, standing at due distance. But 
Ariosto, whose mind could fly out of its nest over all 
nature, wrote over the house he built, " parva, sed apta 
mihi" — small, but suited to me. However, it is to be ob- 
served, that he could not afford a larger. He was a 
Duodenarian, in that respect, like ourselves. We do not 
know how our ideas of a study might expand with our 
walls. Montaigne, who was Montaigne " of that ilk " and 
lord of a great chateau, had a study " sixteen paces in 
diameter, with three noble and free prospects." He con- 
gratulates himself, at the same time, on its circular figure, 
evidently from a feeling allied to the one in favour of small- 
ness. "The figure of my study," says he, " is round, and 
has no more flat (bare) wall, than what is taken up by my 
table and my chairs ; so that the remaining parts of the 
circle present me with a view of all my books at once, set 
upon five degrees of shelves round about me" (Cotton's 
Montaigne, bk. III. ch. iii.). 

A great prospect we hold to be a very disputable advan- 
tage, upon the same reasoning as before • but we like to 



AUTUMNAL FIRES 23 

have some green boughs about our windows, and to fancy 

ourselves as much as possible in the country, when we are 

not there. Milton expressed a wish with regard to his 

study, extremely suitable to our present purpose. He 

would have the lamp in it seen ; thus letting others into a 

share of his enjoyments, by the imagination of them. 

I 
And let my lamp at midnight hour 

Be seen in some high lonely tower, 

Where I may oft outwatch the Bear 

With thrice-great Hermes ; or unsphere 

The Spirit of Plato, to unfold 

What world or what vast regions hold 

The immortal mind, that hath forsook 

Her mansion in this fleshly nook. 

There is a fine passionate burst of enthusiasm on the sub- 
ject of a study, in Fletcher's play of the Elder Brother, 
Act I. Scene ii. : — 

Sordid and dunghill minds, composed of earth, 

In that gross element fix all their happiness : 

But purer spirits, purged and refined, 

Shake off that clog of human frailty. Give me 

Leave to enjoy myself. That place, that does 

Contain my books, the best companions, is 

To me a glorious court, where hourly I 

Converse with the old sages and philosophers ; 

And sometimes for variety 1 confer 

With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels ; 

Calling their victories, if unjustly got, 

Unto a strict account ; and in my fancy, 

Deface their ill-placed statues. Can I then 

Part with such constant pleasures, to embrace 

Uncertain vanities ? /No, be it your care 

To augment a heap of wealth : it shall be mine 

To increase in knowledge.. Lights there, for my study. 




COUNTRY LITTLE fCNCTWN 



We have to inform the public of a remarkable discovery, 
which, though partially disclosed by former travellers, has 
still remained, for the most part, a strange secret. It is 
this ; — that there is actually, at this present moment, and in 
this our own beautiful country of Great Britain, a large 
tract of territory, which to nine hundred and ninety-nine 
thousandths of our beloved countrymen is as much an undis- 
covered land as the other end of New South Wales, or the 
Pole which they have gone to find out. We have read of 
places in romance, which were more shut out by magic from 
people's eyes, though close to them, than if a fifty-foot wall 
encircled them. It would seem as if some such supernatural 
prohibition existed with regard to the land in question ; for 



COUNTRY LITTLE KNOWN 25 

the extremities of it reach to within a short distance from 
the Metropolis, which it surrounds on all sides ; nay, we 
have heard of persons riding through it, without seeing any- 
thing but a sign-post or some corn ; and yet it is so beautiful, 
that it is called emphatically " The Country." 

It abounds in the finest natural productions. The more 
majestic parts of it are at a distance ; but the zealous 
explorer may come upon its gentler beauties in an incredibly 
short time. Its pastures and cattle are admirable. Deer 
are to be met with in the course of half a day's journey ; 
and the traveller is accompanied, wherever he goes, with the 
music of singing birds. Immediately towards the south is 
a noble river, which brings you to an upland of the most 
luxuriant description, looking in the water like a rich-haired 
beauty in her glass : yet the place is in general solitary. 
Towards the north, at a less distance, are some other hilly 
spots of ground, which partake more of the rudely romantic, 
running however into scenes of the like sylvan elegance ; 
and yet these are still more solitary. The inhabitants of 
these lands, called the Country-People, seem, in truth, 
pretty nearly as blind to their merits as those who never see 
them ; but their perceptions will doubtless increase, in pro- 
portion as their polished neighbours set the example. It 
should be said for them, that some causes, with which we 
have nothing to do in this place, have rendered them duller 
to such impressions than they appear to have been a century 
or two ago ; but we repeat, that they will not live in such 
scenes to no purpose, if those who know better, take an 
interest in their improvement. Their children have an 
instinct that is wiser, till domestic cares do it away. They 
may be seen in the fields and green lanes, with their curly 
locks and brown faces, gathering the flowers which abound 
there, and the names of which are as pretty as the shapes 
and colours. They are called wild roses, primroses, violets, 
the rose campion, germander, stellaria, wild anemone, bird's- 



26 COUNTRY LITTLE KNOWN 

eye, daisies and buttercups, lady-smocks, ground-ivy, hare- 
bells or blue-bells, wake-robin, lilies of the valley, etc., etc. The 
trees are oaks, elms, birches, ash, poplar, willow, wild cherry, 
the flowering may bush, etc., etc., all, in short, that we dote 
upon in pictures, and wish that we had about us when it is 
hot in Cheapside and Bond Street. It is perfectly transport- 
ing in fine weather, like the present, for instance, to lounge 
under the hedgerow elms in one of these sylvan places, and 
see the light smoke of the cottages fuming up among the 
green trees, the cattle grazing or lying about with a heavy 
placidity accordant to the time and scene, " painted jays" 
glancing about the glens, the gentle hills sloping down into 
water, the winding embowered lanes, the leafy and flowery 
banks, the green oaks against the blue sky, their ivied 
trunks, the silver-bodied and young-haired birches, and the 
mossy grass treble-carpeted after the vernal rains. Trans- 
porting is it to see all this, and transporting to hear the 
linnets, thrushes, and blackbirds, the grave gladness of the 
bee, and the stock-dove "brooding over her own sweet 
voice." And more transporting than all is it to be in such 
places with a friend that feels like ourselves, in whose heart 
and eyes (especially if they have fair lids), we may see all 
our own happiness doubled, as the landscape itself is reflected 
in the waters. 




FAR COUNTRIES 



Imagination, though no mean thing, is not a proud one. 
If it looks down from its wings upon common-places, it 
only the more perceives the vastness of the region about it. 
The infinity into which its flight carries it might indeed 
throw back upon it a too great sense of insignificance, did 
not beauty or Moral Justice, with its equal eye, look through 
that blank aspect of power, and reassure it ; showing it that 
there is a power as much above power itself, as the thought 
that reaches to all, is to the hand that can touch only thus 
far. 

But we do not wish to get into this tempting region of 
speculation just now. We only intend to show the particular 
instance, in which imagination instinctively displays its natural 
humility : we mean, the fondness which imaginative times 
and people have shown for what is personally remote from 
them ; for what is opposed to their own individual con- 
sciousness, even in range of space, in farness of situation. 

27 



28 FAR COUNTRIES 

There is no surer mark of a vain people than their 
treating other nations with contempt, especially those of 
whom they know least. It is better to verify the proverb, 
and take everything unknown for magnificent, than pre- 
determine it to be worthless. The gain is greater. The 
instinct is more judicious. When we mention the French 
as an instance, we do not mean to be invidious. Most 
nations have their good as well as bad features. In Vanity 
Fair there are many booths. 

The French, not long ago, praised one of their neigh- 
bours so highly, that the latter is suspected to have lost as 
much modesty, as the former gained by it. But they did 
this as a set-off against their own despots and bigots. 
When they again became the greatest power in Europe, 
they had a relapse of their old egotism. The French, 
though an amiable and intelligent people, are not an 
imaginative one. The greatest height they go is in a 
balloon. They get no further than France, let them go 
where they will. They " run the great circle and are still 
at home," like the squirrel in his rolling cage. Instead of 
going to Nature in their poetry, they would make her 
come to them, and dress herself at their last new toilet. 
In philosophy and metaphysics, they divest themselves of 
gross prejudices, and then think they are in as graceful a 
state of nakedness as Adam and Eve. 

At the time when the French had this fit upon them of 
praising the English (which was nevertheless the honester 
one of the two), they took to praising the Chinese for 
numberless unknown qualities. This seems a contradiction 
to the near-sightedness we speak of: but the reason they 
praised them was, that the Chinese had the merit of 
religious toleration ; a great and extraordinary one certainly, 
and not the less so for having been, to all appearance, the 
work of one man. All the romance of China, such as it 
was, — anything in which they differed from the French, — 



FAR COUNTRIES 29 

their dress, their porcelain towers, their Great Wall, — was 
nothing. It was the particular agreement with the 
philosophers. 

It happened, curiously enough, that they could not have 
selected for their panegyric a nation apparently more con- 
temptuous of others ; or at least more self-satisfied and un- 
imaginative. The Chinese are cunning and ingenious, and 
have a great talent at bowing out ambassadors who come to 
visit them. But it is somewhat inconsistent with what 
appears to be their general character, that they should pay 
strangers even this equivocal compliment; for under a pro- 
digious mask of politeness, they are not slow to evince their 
contempt of other nations, whenever any comparison is 
insinuated with the subjects of the Brother of the Sun 
and Moon. The knowledge they respect in us most is that 
of gun-making, and of the East- Indian passage. When 
our countrymen showed them a map of the earth, they 
inquired for China ; and on finding that it only made a little 
piece in a corner, could not contain their derision. They 
thought that it was the main territory in the middle, the 
apple of the world's eye. 

On the other hand, the most imaginative nations, in their 
highest times, have had a respect for remote countries. It 
is a mistake to suppose that the ancient term barbarian, 
applied to foreigners, suggested the meaning we are apt to 
give it. It gathered some such insolence with it in the 
course of time ; but the more intellectual Greeks venerated 
the countries from which they brought the elements of 
their mythology and philosophy. The philosopher travelled 
into Egypt, like a son to see his father. The merchant 
heard in Phoenicia the far-brought stories of other realms, 
which he told to his delighted countrymen. It is sup- 
posed, that the mortal part of Mentor in the Odyssey was 
drawn from one of these voyagers. When Anacharsis 
the Scythian was reproached with his native place by an 



3 o FAR COUNTRIES 

unworthy Greek, he said, «' My country may be a shame to 
me, but you are a shame to your country." Greece had 
a lofty notion of the Persians and the Great King, till 
Xerxes came over to teach it better, and betrayed the soft- 
ness of their skulls. 

It was the same with the Arabians, at the time when they 
had the accomplishments of the world to themselves ; as we 
see by their delightful tales. Everything shines with them 
in the distance, like a sunset. What an amiable people are 
these Persians ! What a wonderful place is the island of 
Serendib ! You would think nothing could be finer than the 
Caliph's city of Bagdad, till you hear of " Grand Cairo " ; 
and how has that epithet and that name towered in the 
imagination of all those, who have not had the misfortune to 
see the modern city ? Sindbad was respected, like Ulysses, 
because he had seen so many adventures and nations. So 
was Aboulfaouris the Great Voyager, in the Persian Tales. 
His very name sounds like a wonder. 

With many a tempest had his beard been shaken. 

It was one of the workings of the great Alfred's mind, 
to know about far-distant countries. There is. a translation 
by him of a book of geography ; and he even employed 
people to travel : a great stretch of intellectual munificence 
for those times. About the same period, Haroun al 
Raschid (whom our manhood is startled to find almost a 
less real person than we thought him, for his very reality) 
wrote a letter to the Emperor of the West, Charlemagne. 
Here is Arabian and Italian romance, shaking hands in 
person. 

The Crusades pierced into a new world of remoteness. 
We do not know whether those were much benefited, who 
took part in them ; but for the imaginative persons remain- 
ing at home, the idea of going to Palestine must have been 
like travelling into a supernatural world. When the cam- 



FAR COUNTRIES 31 

paign itself had a good effect, it must have been of a very 
fine and highly-tempered description. Chaucer's Knight 
had been 

Sometime with the lord of Palatie 

Agen another hethen in Turkie : 

And evermore he had a sovereign price ; 

And though that he was worthy, he was wise, 

And of his port as meek as is a mayde. 

How like a return from the moon must have been the 
re-appearance of such travellers as Sir John Mandevile, 
Marco Polo, and William de Rubruquis, with their news of 
Prester John, the Great Mogul, and the great Cham of 
Tartary ! The long-lost voyager must have been like a 
person consecrated in all the quarters of heaven. His staff 
and his beard must have looked like relics of his former 
self. The Venetians, who were some of the earliest 
European travellers, have been remarked, among their 
other amiable qualities, for their great respect for strangers. 
The peculiarity of their position, and the absence of so 
many things which are common-places to other countries, 
such as streets, horses and coaches, add, no doubt, to this 
feeling. But a foolish or vain people would only feel a 
contempt for what they did not possess. Milton, in one of 
those favourite passages of his, in which he turns a nomen- 
clature into such grand meaning and music, shows us whose 
old footing he had delighted to follow. How he enjoys 
the distance ; emphatically Ubing the words far, farthest and 
utmost / 

— Embassies from regions far remote, 

In various habits, on the Appian road, 

Or on the Emilian ; some from farthest south, 

Syene, and where the shadow both way falls, 

Meroe, Nilotick Isle ; and more to west, 

The realm of Bocchus to the Black-moor sea ; 



32 FAR COUNTRIES 

From the Asian kings, and Parthian among these ; f 

From India and the golden Chersonese, 

And utmost Indian isle Taprobane. — Parad. Reg. bk. iv. 

One of the main helps to our love of remoteness in 
general, is the associations we connect with it of peace and 
quietness. Whatever there may be at a distance, people 
feel as if they should escape from the worry of their local 
cares. " O that I had wings like a dove ! then would I 
fly away and be at rest." The word far is often used wil- 
fully in poetry, to render distance still more distant. An 
old English song begins — 

In Irelande farre over the sea 
There dwelt a bonny king. 

Thomson, a Scotchman, speaking of the western isles of 
his own country, has that delicious line, full of a dreary yet 
lulling pleasure ; — 

As when a shepherd of the Hebrid isles, 
Placed far amid the melancholy main. 

In childhood, the total ignorance of the world, especially 
when we are brought up in some confined spot, renders 
everything beyond the bounds of our dwelling a distance 
and a romance. Mr Lamb, in his Recollections of Christ's 
Hospital, says that he remembers when some half-dozen 
of his schoolfellows set off, " without map, card, or com- 
pass, on a serious expedition to find out Philip Quarll's 
Island." We once encountered a set of boys as romantic. 
It was at no greater distance than at the foot of a hill near 
Hampstead ; yet the spot was so perfectly Cisalpine to 
them, that two of them came up to us with looks of 
hushing eagerness, and asked " whether, on the other side 
of that hill, there were not robbers ; " to which, the minor 
adventurer of the two added, "and some say serpents." 
They had all got bows and arrows, and were evidently 



THE OLD GENTLEMAN 33 

hovering about the place, betwixt daring and apprehension, 
as on the borders of some wild region. We smiled to 
think which it was that husbanded their suburb wonders to 
more advantage, they or we ; for while they peopled the 
place with robbers and serpents, we were peopling it with 
sylvans and fairies. 

" So was it when my life began ; 
So is it now I am a man ; 
So be it when I shall grow old, 

Or let me die ! 
The child is father to the man ; 
And I could wish my days to be 
Bound each to each by natural piety." 



THE OLD GENTLEMAN 

Our Old Gentleman, in order to be exclusively himself, 
must be either a widower or a bachelor. Suppose the 
former. We do not mention his precise age, which would 
be invidious : — nor whether he wears his own hair or a wig : 
which would be wanting in universality. If a wig, it is a 
compromise between the more modern scratch and the 
departed glory of the toupee. If his own hair, it is white, 
in spite of his favourite grandson, who used to get on the 
chair behind him, and pull the silver hairs out, ten years 
ago. If he is bald at top, the hairdresser, hovering and 
breathing about him like a second youth, takes care to give 
the bald place as much powder as the covered, in order 
that he may convey to the sensorium within a pleasing 
indistinctness of idea respecting the exact limits of skin and 
hair. He is very clean and neat ; and, in warm weather, 
is proud of opening his waistcoat half-way down, and 
letting so much of his frill be seen, in order to show his 

c 



$4 THE OLD GENTLEMAN 

hardiness as well as taste. His watch and shirt- buttons 
are of the best ; and he does not care if he has two rings on 
a finger. If his watch ever failed him at the club or 
coffee-house, he would take a walk every day to the 
nearest clock of good character, purely to keep it right. 
He has a cane at home, but seldom uses it, on finding it 
out of fashion with his elderly juniors. He has a small 
cocked hat for gala days, which he lifts higher from his 
head than the round one, when bowed to. In his pockets 
are two handkerchiefs (one for the neck at night-time), his 
spectacles, and his pocket-book. The pocket-book, among 
other things, contains a receipt for a cough, and some verses 
cut out of an odd sheet of an old magazine, on the lovely 
Duchess of A., beginning — 

When beauteous Mira walks the plain. 

He intends this for a common-place book which he keeps, 
consisting of passages in verse and prose, cut out of news- 
papers and magazines, and pasted in columns ; some of 
them rather gay. His principal other books are Shake- 
speare's Plays and Milton's Paradise Lost ; the 
Spectator, the History of England, the Works of 
Lady M. W. Montague, Pope and Churchill ; Middle- 
ton's Geography ; the Gentleman s Magazine ; Sir John 
Sinclair on Longevity ; several plays with portraits in 
character ; Account of Elizabeth Canning, Memoirs of 
George Ann Bellamy, Poetical Amusements at Bath- 
Easton, Blair's Works, Elegant Extracts ; Junius, as 
originally published ; a few pamphlets on the American 
War and Lord George Gordon, &c, and one on the 
French Revolution. In his sitting-rooms are some engrav- 
ings from Hogarth and Sir Joshua ; an engraved portrait of 
the Marquis of Granby ; ditto of M. le Comte de Grasse 
surrendering to Admiral Rodney ; a humorous piece after 
Penny ; and a portrait of himself; painted by Sir Joshua. 



THE OLD GENTLEMAN 35 

His wife's portrait is in his chamber, looking upon his bed. 
She is a little girl, stepping forward with a smile, and a 
pointed toe, as if going to dance. He lost her when she 
was sixty. 

The Old Gentleman is an early riser, because he intends 
to live at least twenty years longer. He continues to take 
tea for breakfast, in spite of what is said against its nervous 
effects ; having been satisfied on that point some years ago 
by Dr. Johnston's criticism on Hanway, and a great liking 
for tea previously. His china cups and saucers have been 
broken since his wife's death, all but one, which is religiously 
kept for his use. He passes his morning in walking or 
riding, looking in at auctions, looking after his India bonds 
or some such money securities, furthering some subscription 
set on foot by his excellent friend Sir John, or cheapening a 
new old print for his portfolio. He also hears of the news- 
papers ; not caring to see them till after dinner at the coffee- 
house. He may also cheapen a fish or so ; the fishmonger 
soliciting his doubting eye as he passes, with a profound bow 
of recognition. He eats a pear before dinner. 

His dinner at the coffee-house is served up to him at the 
accustomed hour, in the old accustomed way, and by the 
accustomed waiter. If William did not bring it, the fish 
would be sure to be stale, and the flesh new. He eats no 
tart ; or if he ventures on a little, takes cheese with it. 
You might as soon attempt to persuade him out of his senses, 
as that cheese is not good for digestion. He takes port ; 
and if he has drunk more than usual, and in a more private 
place, may be induced by some respectful inquiries respect- 
ing the old style of music, to sing a song composed by Mr. 
Oswald or Mr. Lampe, such as — 

Chloe, by that borrowed kiss, 
or 

Come, gentle god of soft repose, 

or his wife's favourite ballad, beginning — 



36 THE OLD GENTLEMAN 

At Upton on the hill, 
There lived a happy pair. 

Of course, no such exploit can take place in the coffee- 
room : but he will canvass the theory of that matter there 
with you, or discuss the weather, or the markets, or the 
theatres, or the merits of " my lord North " or " my lord 
Rockingham ; " for he rarely says simply, lord ; it is 
generally " my lord," trippingly and genteely off the 
tongue. If alone after dinner, his great delight is the 
newspaper ; which he prepares to read by wiping his spec- 
tacles, carefully adjusting them on his eyes, and drawing 
the candle close to him, so as to stand sideways betwixt his 
ocular aim and the small type. He then holds the paper at 
arm's length, and dropping his eyelids half down and his 
mouth half open, takes cognisance of the day's information. 
If he leaves off, it is only when the door is opened by 
a new-comer, or when he suspects somebody is over- 
anxious to get the paper out of his hand. On these 
occasions he gives an important hem ! or so ; and 
resumes. 

In the evening, our Oid Gentleman is fond of going to 
the theatre, or of having a game of cards. If he enjoys 
the latter at his own house or lodgings, he likes to play 
with some friends whom he has known for many years ; 
but an elderly stranger may be introduced, if quiet and 
scientific ; and the privilege is extended to younger men of 
letters ; who, if ill players, are good losers. Not that he 
is a miser, but to win money at cards is like proving his 
victory by getting the baggage ; and to win off a younger 
man is a substitute for his not being able to beat him 
at rackets. He breaks up early, whether at home or 
abroad. 

At the theatre, he likes a front row in the pit. He 
comes early, if he can do so without getting into a squeeze, 
and sits patiently waiting for the drawing up of the curtain, 



THE OLD GENTLEMAN 39 

with his hands placidly lying one over the other on the top 
of his stick. He generously admires some of the best per- 
formers, but thinks them far inferior to Garrick, Woodward, 
and Clive. During splendid scenes, he is anxious that the 
little boy should see. 

He has been induced to look in at Vauxhall again, but 
likes it still less than he did years back, and cannot bear it 
in comparison with Ranelagh. He thinks everything looks 
poor, flaring, and jaded. " Ah ! " says he, with a sort of 
triumphant sigh, " Ranelagh was a noble place ! Such 
taste, such elegance, such beauty ! There was the Duchess 
of A., the finest woman in England, Sir ; and Mrs. L., a 
mighty fine creature ; and Lady Susan what's her name, 
that had that unfortunate affair with Sir Charles. Sir, they 
came swimming by you like the swans." 

The Old Gentleman is very particular in having his 
slippers ready for him at the fire, when he comes home. 
He is also extremely choice in his snuff, and delights to 
get a fresh box-full in Tavistock Street, in his way to the 
theatre. His box is a curiosity from India. He calls 
favourite young ladies by their Christian names, however 
slightly acquainted with them ; and has a privilege of 
saluting all brides, mothers, and indeed every species of 
lady, on the least holiday occasion. If the husband, for 
instance, has met with a piece of luck, he instantly moves 
forward, and gravely kisses the wife on the cheek. The 
wife then says, " My niece, Sir, from the country ; " and 
he kisses the niece. The niece, seeing her cousin biting 
her lips at the joke, says, " My cousin Harriet, Sir ; " and 
he kisses the cousin. He " never recollects such weather," 
except during the " Great Frost," or when he rode down 
with "Jack Skrimshire to Newmarket." He grows young 
again in his little grand-children, especially the one which 
he thinks most like himself; which is the handsomest. Yet 
he likes best perhaps the one most resembling his wife ; and 



4 o THE OLD GENTLEMAN 

will sit with him on his lap, holding his hand in silence, for 
a quarter of an hour together. He plays most tricks with 
the former, and makes him sneeze. He asks little boys in 
general who was the father of Zebedee's children. If his 
grandsons are at school, he often goes to see them ; and 
makes them blush by telling the master or the upper- 
scholars, that they are fine boys, and of a precocious genius. 
He is much struck when an old acquaintance dies, but adds 
that he lived too fast ; and that poor Bob was a sad dog in 
his youth ; "a very sad dog, Sir ; mightily set upon a short 
life and a merry one." 

When he gets very old indeed, he will sit for whole 
evenings, and say little or nothing ; but informs you that 
there is Mrs. Jones (the housekeeper) — "She '11 talk." 




THE OLD LADY 



If the Old Lady is a widow and lives alone, the manners 
of her condition and time of life are so much the more 
apparent. She generally dresses in plain silks, that make a 
gentle rustling as she moves about the silence of her room ; 
and she wears a nice cap with a lace border, that comes 
under the chin. In a placket at her side is an old enamelled 
watch, unless it is locked up in a drawer of her toilet, for 
fear of accidents. Her waist is rather tight and trim than 
otherwise, as she had a fine one when young ; and she is 
not sorry if you see a pair of her stockings on a table, that 
you may be aware of the neatness of her leg and foot. Con- 
tented with these and other evident indications of a good shape, 
and letting her young friends understand that she can afford 
to obscure it a little, she wears pockets, and uses them well 
too. In the one is her handkerchief, and any heavier 



42 THE OLD LADY 

matter that is not likely to come out with it, such as the 
change of a sixpence ; in the other is a miscellaneous assort- 
ment, consisting of a pocket-book, a bunch of keys, a 
needle-case, a spectacle-case, crumbs of biscuit, a nutmeg 
and grater, a smelling-bottle, and, according to the season, 
an orange or apple, which after many days she draws out, 
warm and glossy, to give to some little child that has well 
behaved itself. She generally occupies two rooms, in the 
neatest condition possible. In the chamber is a bed with a 
white coverlet, built up high and round, to look well, and 
with curtains of a pastoral pattern, consisting alternately of 
large plants, and shepherds and shepherdesses. On the 
mantelpiece are more shepherds and shepherdesses, with 
dot-eyed sheep at their feet, all in coloured ware : the man, 
perhaps, in a pink jacket and knots of ribbons at his knees 
and shoes, holding his crook lightly in one hand, and with 
the other at his breast, turning his toes out and looking 
tenderly at the shepherdess : the woman holding a crook 
also, and modestly returning his look, with a gipsy-hat 
jerked up behind, a very slender waist, with petticoat and 
hips to counteract, and the petticoat pulled up through the 
pocket-holes, in order to show the trimness of her ankles. 
But these patterns, of course, are various. The toilet is 
ancient, carved at the edges, and tied about with a snow- 
white drapery of muslin. Beside it are various boxes, 
mostly japan ; and the set of drawers are exquisite things 
for a little girl to rummage, if ever little girl be so bold, — 
containing ribbons and laces of various kinds ; linen smelling 
of lavender, of the flowers of which there is always dust in 
the corners ; a heap of pocket-books for a series of years ; 
and pieces of dress long gone by, such as head-fronts, 
stomachers, and flowered satin shoes, with enormous heels. 
The stock of letters are under especial lock and key. So 
much for the bed-room. In the sitting-room is rather a 
spare assortment of shining old mahogany furniture, or 



THEOLDLADY 43 

carved arm-chairs equally old, with chintz draperies down 
to the ground ; a folding or other screen, with Chinese 
figures, their round, little-eyed, meek faces perking side- 
ways ; a stuffed bird, perhaps in a glass case (a living one 
is too much for her) ; a portrait of her husband over the 
mantel-piece, in a coat with frog-buttons, and a delicate 
frilled hand lightly inserted, in the waistcoat ; and opposite 
him on the wall, is a piece of embroidered literature, framed 
and glazed, containing some moral distich or maxim, 
worked in angular capital letters, with two trees or parrots 
below, in their proper colours ; the whole concluding with 
an ABC and numerals, and the name of the fair industrious, 
expressing it to be " her work, Jan. 14, 1762." The rest 
of the furniture consists of a looking-glass with carved 
edges, perhaps a settee, a hassock for the feet, a mat for the 
little dog, and a small set of shelves, in which are the 
Spectator and Guardian, the Turkish Spy, a Bible and Prayer 
Book, Young's Night Thoughts with a piece of lace in it to 
flatten, Mrs. Howe's Devout Exercises of the Heart, Mrs. 
Glasse's Cookery, and perhaps Sir Charles Grandison, and 
Clarissa. John Buncle is in the closet among the pickles 
and preserves. The clock is on the landing-place between 
the two room doors, where it ticks audibly but quietly ; and 
the landing-place, as well as the stairs, is carpeted to a 
nicety. The house is most in character, and properly 
coeval, if it is in a retired suburb, and strongly built, with 
wainscot rather than paper inside, and lockers in the win- 
dows. Before the windows should be some quivering 
poplars. Here the Old Lady receives a few quiet visitors 
to tea, and perhaps an early game at cards : or you may see 
her going out on the same kind of visit herself, with a 
light umbrella running up into a stick and crooked ivory 
handle, and her little dog, equally famous for his love 
to her and captious antipathy to strangers. Her grand- 
children dislike him on holidays, and the boldest some- 



44 THEOLDLADY 

times ventures to give him a sly kick under the table. 
When she returns at night, she appears, if the weather 
happens to be doubtful, in a calash ; and her servant in 
pattens, follows half behind and half at her side, with a 
lantern. 

Her opinions are not many nor new. She thinks the 
clergyman a nice man. The Duke of Wellington, in her 
opinion, is a very great man ; but she has a secret preference 
for the Marquis of Granby. She thinks the young women 
of the present day too forward, and the men not respectful 
enough ; but hopes her grand-children will be better ; though 
she differs with her daughter in several points respecting 
their management. She sets little value on the new accom- 
plishments ; is a great though delicate connoisseur in 
butcher's meat and all sorts of housewifery ; and if you 
mention waltzes, expatiates on the grace and fine breeding 
of the minuet. She longs to have seen one danced by Sir 
Charles Grandison, whom she almost considers as a real 
person. She likes a walk of a summer's evening, but 
avoids the new streets, canals, etc., and sometimes goes 
through the churchyard, where her children and husband 
lie buried, serious, but not melancholy. She has had three 
great epochs in her life : her marriage — her having been at 
coutt, to see the King and Queen and Royal Family — and 
a compliment on her figure she once received, in passing, 
from Mr Wilkes, whom she describes as a sad, loose man, 
but engaging. His plainness she thinks much exaggerated. 
If anything takes her at a distance from home, it is still the 
court ; but she seldom stirs, even for that. The last time 
but one that she went, was to see the Duke of Wirtemberg ; 
and most probably for the last time of all, to see the Princess 
Charlotte and Prince Leopold. From this beatific vision 
she returned with the same admiration as ever for the line 
comely appearance of the Duke of York and the rest of the 
family, and great delight at having had a near view of the 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 



45 



Princess, whom she speaks of with smiling pomp and lifted 
mittens, clasping them as passionately as she can together, 
and calling her, in a transport of mixed loyalty and self- 
love, a fine royal young creature, and " Daughter of 
England." 



A WALK 
FROM DULWICH TO BROCKHAM 

IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND 

With an original Circumstance or two respecting Dr. Johnson 

Dear Sir, 
As other calls upon my pilgrimage in this world have 
interrupted those weekly voyages of discovery into green 
lanes and rustic houses of entertainment which you and I 
had so agreeably commenced, I thought I could, not do 
better than make you partaker of my new journey, as far as 
pen and paper could do it. You are therefore to look upon 
yourself as having resolved to take a walk of twenty or thirty 
miles into Surrey without knowing anything of the matter. 
You will have set out with us a fortnight ago, and will be kind 
enough to take your busts for chambermaids, and your music 
(which is not so easy) for the voices of stage-coachmen. 

Illness, you know, does not hinder me from walking ; 
neither does anxiety. On the contrary, the more I walk, 
the better and stouter I become ; and I believe if everybody 
were to regard the restlessness which anxiety creates, as a 
signal from nature to get up and contend with it in that 
manner, people would find the benefit of it. This is more 
particularly the case if they are lovers of Nature, as well as 
pupils of her, and have an eye for the beauties in which her 
visible world abounds ; and as I may claim the merit of 



4 6 A WALK FROM DULWICH 

loving her heartily, and even of tracing my sufferings (when 
I have them) to her cause, the latter are never so great but 
she repays me with some sense of sweetness, and leaves me 
a certain property in the delight of others, when I have 
little of my own. 

" Oh that I had the wings of a dove ! " said the royal 
poet; "then would I fly away and be at rest." I believe 
there are few persons, who having felt sorrow, and anticipat- 
ing a journey not exactly towards it, have not partaken of 
this sense of the desirability of remoteness. A great deal 
of what we love in poetry is founded upon it ; nor do any 
feel it with more passion, than those whose sense of duty to 
their fellow-creatures will not allow them to regard retire- 
ment as anything but a refreshment between their tasks, and 
as a wealth of which all ought to partake. 

But David sighed for remoteness, and not for solitude. 
At least, if he did, the cares of the moment must have 
greatly overbalanced the habits of the poet. Neither doves 
nor poets can very well do without a companion. Be that 
as it may, the writer of this epistle, who is a still greater 
lover of companionship than poetry (and he cannot express 
his liking more strongly) had not the misfortune, on the 
present occasion, of being compelled to do without it ; and 
as to remoteness, though his pilgrimage was to extend little 
beyond twenty miles, he had not the less sense of it on that 
account. Remoteness is not how far you go in point of 
ground, but how far you feel yourself from your common- 
places. Literal distance is indeed necessary in some 
degree ; but the quantity of it depends on imagination and 
the nature of circumstances. The poet who can take to his 
wings like a dove, and plunge into the wood nearest him, is 
farther off, millions of miles, in the retreat of his thoughts, 
than the literalist, who must get to Johnny Groat's in order 
to convince himself that he is not in Edinburgh. 

Almost any companion would do, if we could not make 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 47 

our choice, provided it lovepl us and was sincere. A horse 
is good company, if you have no other ; a dog still better. 
I have often thought that 1 could take a child by the hand, 
and walk with it day after day towards the north or the east, 
a straight road, feeling as if it would lead into another world, 
"And think 'twould lead to some bright isle of rest." 

But I should have to go back, to fetch some grown friends. 
There were three of us on the present occasion, grown 
and young. We began by taking the Dulwich stage from 
a house in Fleet Street, where a drunken man came into 
the tap, and was very pious. He recited hymns ; asked the 
landlady to shake hands with him ; was for making a sofa 
of the counter, which she prevented by thrusting his leg 
off with some indignation ; and being hindered in this piece 
of jollity, he sank on his knees to pray. He was too good- 
natured for a Methodist ; so had taken to stiff glasses of 
brandy-and-water, 

"To help him to support uneasy steps 
Over the burning marie." 

He said he had been "twice through the gates of hell"; 
and by his drinking, poor fellow, he seemed to be setting 
out on his third adventure. We called him Sin-bad. By 
the way, when you were a boy, did you not think that 
the name of Sindbad was allegorical, and meant a man who 
had sinned very badly ? Does not every little boy think so r 
One does not indeed, at that time of life, know very well 
what to make of the porter Hindbad, who rhymes to him ; 
and I remember I was not pleased when I came to find 
out that Hind and Sind were component words, and meant 
Eastern and Western. 

The stage took us to the Greyhound at Dulwich, where, 
though we had come from another village almost as far off 
from London on the northern side, we felt as if we had 
newly got into the country, and ate a hearty supper accord- 



48 A WALK FROM DULWICH 

ingly. This was a thing not usual with us ; but then 
everybody eats " in the country " ; — there is " the air " ; 
and besides, we had eaten little dinner, and were merrier, and 
" remote. " On looking out of our chamber window in 
the morning, we remarked that the situation of the inn was 
beautiful, even towards the road, the place is so rich with 
trees ; and returning to the room in which we had supped, 
we found with pleasure that we had a window there, 
presenting us with a peep into rich meadows, where the 
haymakers were at work in their white shirts. A sunny 
room, quiet, our remote five miles, and a pleasant subject 
(the Poetry of British Ladies) enabled the editorial part of 
us to go comfortably to our morning's task ; after which 
we left the inn to proceed on our journey. We had not 
seen Dulwich for many years, and were surprised to find it 
still so full of trees. It continues, at least in the quarter 
through which we passed, to deserve the recommendation 
given it by Armstrong, of 

''Dulwich, yet unspoil'd by art." 



He would have added, had he lived, now that art had 
come, even to make it better. It was with real pain, that 
two lovers of painting were obliged to coast the walls of 
the college without seeing the gallery : but we have vowed 
a pilgrimage very shortly to those remoter places, there to 
be found ; to wit, the landscapes of Claude and Cuyp, and 
the houses of Rembrandt ; and we shall make report of it, 
to save our character. We know not whether it was the 
sultriness of the day, with occasional heavy clouds, but we 
thought the air of Dulwich too warm, and pronounced it a 
place of sleepy luxuriance. So it appeared to us that 
morning ; beautiful, however, and " remote " ; and the 
thought of old Allen, Shakspeare's playmate, made it still 
more so. 

I remember, in my boyhood, seeing Sir Francis 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 49 

Bourgeois (the bequeather of the Dulwich pictures) in 
company with Mr. West, in the latter's gallery in Newman 
Street. He was in buckskins and boots, dandy dress of 
that time, and appeared a lively, good-natured man, with a 
pleasing countenance, probably because he said something 
pleasant of myself; he confirmed it with an oath, which 
startled, but did not alter this opinion. Ever afterwards I 
had an inclination to like his pictures, which I believe were 
not very good ; and unfortunately, with whatever gravity 
he might paint, his oath and his buckskins would never 
allow me to consider him a serious person ; so that it 
somewhat surprised me to hear that M. Desenfans had 
bequeathed him his gallery out of pure regard ; and still 
more that Sir Francis, when he died, had ordered his own 
remains to be gathered to those of his benefactor and 
Madame Desenfans, and all three buried in the society of 
the pictures they loved. For the first time, I began to 
think that his pictures must have contained more than was 
found in them, and that I had done wrong (as it is 
customary to do) to the gaiety of his manners. If there 
was vanity in the bequest, as some have thought, it was at 
least a vanity accompanied with touching circumstances and 
an appearance of a very social taste ; and as most people 
have their vanities, it might be as well for them to think 
what sort of accompaniments exalt or degrade theirs, or 
render them purely dull and selfish. As to the Gallery's 
being "out of the way," especially for students, I am of a 
different opinion, and for two reasons : first, that no 
gallery, whether in or out of the way, can ever produce 
great artists, nature, and perhaps the very want of a gallery, 
always settling that matter before galleries are thought of; 
and, second, because in going to see the pictures in a 
beautiful country village, people get out of their town 
common-places, and are better prepared for the perception 
of other beauties, and of the nature that makes them all. 

P 



5 o A WALK FROM DULWICH 

Besides, there is probably something to pay on a jaunt of 
this kind, and yet of a different sort from payments at a 
door. There is no illiberal demand at Dulwich for a 
liberal pleasure; but then "the inn" is inviting; people 
eat and drink, and get social ; and the warmth which 
dinner and a glass diffuses, helps them to rejoice doubly in 
the warmth of the sunshine and the pictures, and in the 
fame of the great and generous. 

Leaving Dulwich for Norwood (where we rejoiced to 
hear that some of our old friends the Gipsies were still 
extant), we found the air very refreshing as we ascended 
towards the church of the latter village. It is one of the 
dandy modern churches (for they deserve no better name) 
standing on an open hill, as if to be admired. It is pleasant 
to see churches instead of Methodist chapels, because any 
moderate religion has more of real Christianity in it, than 
contumelious opinions of God and the next world; but 
there is a want of taste, of every sort, in these new 
churches. They are not picturesque, like the old ones ; 
they are not humble ; they are not, what they are so often 
miscalled, classical. A barn is a more classical building 
than a church with a fantastic steeple to it. In fact, a barn 
is of the genuine classical shape, and only wants a stone 
covering, and pillars about it, to become a temple of Theseus. 
The classical shape is the shape of simple utility and beauty. 
Sometimes we see it in the body of the modern church ; 
but then a steeple must be put on it : the artist must have 
something of his own ; and having, in fact, nothing of his 
own, he first puts a bit of a steeple, which he thinks will 
not be enough, then another bit, and then another ; adds 
another fantastic ornament here and there to his building, by 
way of rim or " border, like " ; and so, having put his 
pepper-box over his pillars, and his pillars over his pepper- 
box, he pretends he has done a grand thing, while he knows 
very well that he has only been perplexed, and a bricklayer, 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 51 

For a village, the old picturesque church is the proper 
thing, with its tower and its trees, as at Hendon and 
Finchley ; or its spire, as at Beckenham. Classical beauty- 
is one thing, Gothic or Saxon beauty is another ; quite as 
genuine in its way, and in this instance more suitable. It 
has been well observed, that what is called classical 
architecture, though of older date than the Gothic, really 
does not look so old — does not so well convey the 
sentiment of antiquity ; that is to say, the ideal associations 
of this world, however ancient, are far surpassed in the 
reach of ages by those of religion, and the patriarchs and 
another world ; not to mention, that we have been used to 
identify them with the visible old age of our parents and 
kindred ; and that Greek and Roman architecture, in its 
smoothness and polish, has an unfading look of youth. It 
might be thought that the erection of new churches on the 
classical principle (taking it for granted that, they remind us 
more of Greek and Roman temples, than of their own 
absurdity) would be favourable to the growth of liberality ; 
that, at least, liberality would not be opposed by it ; whereas 
the preservation of the old style might tend to keep up old 
notions. We do not think so, except inasmuch as the old 
notions would not be unfavourable to the new. New 
opinions ought to be made to grow as kindly as possible out 
of old ones, and should preserve all that they contain of the 
affectionate and truly venerable. We could fancy the 
most liberal doctrines preached five hundred years hence in 
churches precisely like those of our ancestors, and their old 
dust ready to blossom into delight at the arrival of true 
Christianity. But these new, fine, heartless-looking, showy 
churches, neither one thing nor the other, have, to our 
eyes, an appearance of nothing but worldliness and a job. 

We descended into Streatham by the lane leading to the 
White Lion ; the which noble beast, regardant, looked at us 
up the narrow passage, as if intending to dispute rather than 



52 A WALK FROM DULWICH 

invite our approach to the castle of his hospitable proprietor. 
On going nearer, we found that the grimness of his aspect 
was purely in our imaginations, the said lordly animal 
having, in fact, a countenance singularly humane, and very 
like a gentleman we knew once of the name of Collins. 

It not being within our plan to accept Collin's invitation, 
we turned to the left, and proceeded down the village, 
thinking of Dr. Johnson. Seeing, however, an aged land- 
lord at the door, we stepped back to ask him if he 
remembered the Doctor. He knew nothing of him, nor 
even of Mr. Thrale, having come late, he said, to those 
parts. Resuming our way, we saw, at the end of the 
village, a decent-looking old man, with a sharp eye and a 
hale countenance, who, with an easy, self-satisfied air, as if 
he had worked enough in his time and was no longer 
under the necessity of over-troubling himself, sat indolently 
cracking stones in the road. We asked him if he knew 
Dr. Johnson ; and he said, with a jerk-up of his eye, " Oh 
yes; — / knew him well enough." Seating myself on one 
side of his trench of stones, I proceeded to have that 
matter out with Master Whatman (for such was the name 
of my informant). His information did not amount to 
much, but it contained one or two points which I do not 
remember to have met with, and every addition to our 
knowledge of such a man is valuable. Nobody will think 
it more so than yourself, who will certainly yearn over this 
part of my letter, and make much of it. The following is 
the sum total of what was related : — Johnson, he said, wore 
a silk waistcoat embroidered with silver, and all over snuff. 
The snuff he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket, and 
would take a handful of it out with one hand, and help 
himself to it with the other. He would sometimes have 
his dinner brought out to him in the park, and set on the 
ground ; and while he was waiting for it, would lie idly, 
and cut the grass with a knife. His manners were very 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 5$ 

good-natured, and sometimes so childish, that people would 
have taken him for " an idiot, like." His voice was 
" low." — " Do you mean low in a gruff sense ? " — " No : 
it was rather feminine." — " Then perhaps, in one sense of 
the word, it was high ? " — "Yes, it was." — " And 
gentle?" — " Yes, very gentle!" — (This, of course, was 
to people in general, and to the villagers. When he 
dogmatised, it became what Lord Pembroke called a 
" bow-wow." The late Mr. Fuseli told us the same thing 
of Johnson's voice; we mean, that it was "high," in 
contradistinction to a bass voice.) To proceed with our 
village historian. Our informant recurred several times to 
the childish manners of Johnson, saying that he often 
appeared " quite simple," — "just like a child," — "almost 
foolish, like." When he walked, he always seemed in a 
hurry. His walk was "between a run and a shuffle." 
Master Whatman was here painting a good portrait. I 
have often suspected that the best likeness of Johnson was 
a whole-length engraving of him, walking in Scotland, with 
that joke of his underneath, about the stick that he lost in 
the isle of Mull. Boswell told him the stick would 
be returned. " No, sir," replied he ; " consider the value 
of such a piece of timber here." The manner of his walk in 
the picture is precisely that described by the villager. 
Whatman concluded, by giving his opinion of Mrs. Thrale, 
which he did in exactly the following words: — "She 
gathered a good deal of knowledge from him, but does not 
seem to have turned it to much account." Wherever you 
now go about the country, you recognise the effects of 
that "Twopenny Trash," which the illiberal affect to hold 
in such contempt, and are really so afraid of. They have 
reason ; for people now canvass their pretensions in good 
set terms, who would have said nothing but " Anan ! " to 
a question thirty years back. Not that Mr. Whatman dis- 
cussed politics with us. Let no magnanimous Quarterly 



54 A WALK FROM DULWICH 

Reviewer try to get him turned out of a place on that 
score. We are speaking of the peasantry at large, and 
then, not merely of politics, but of questions of all sorts 
interesting to humanity ; which the very clowns now discuss 
by the roadside, to an extent at which their former leaders 
would not dare to discuss them. This is one reason, among 
others, why knowledge must go on victoriously. A real 
zeal for the truth can discuss anything ; slavery can only 
go the length of its chain. 

In quitting Streatham, we met a lady on horseback, 
accompanied by three curs and a footman, which a milk- 
man facetiously termed a footman and *« three outriders." 
Entering Mitcham by the green where they play at cricket, 
we noticed a pretty, moderate-sized house, with the largest 
geraniums growing on each side of the door that we ever 
beheld in that situation. Mitcham reminded me of its 
neighbour, Merton, and of the days of my childhood ; but 
we could not go out of our way to see it. There was the 
little river Wandle, however, turning a mill, and flowing 
between flowery meadows. The mill was that of a copper 
manufactory, at which the people work night as well as 
day, one half taking the duties alternately. The reason 
given for this is, that by night the river, not being inter- 
rupted by other demands upon it, works to better advantage. 
The epithet of " flowery " applied to the district, is no 
poetical licence. In the fields about Mitcham they culti- 
vate herbs for the apothecaries ; so that in the height of the 
season, you walk as in the Elysian fields, 

" In yellow meads of asphodel, 
And amaranthine bowers." 

Apothecaries' Hall, I understand, is entirely supplied with 
this poetical part of medicine from some acres of ground 
belonging to Major Moor. A beautiful bed of poppies, as 
we entered Morden, glowed in the setting sun, like the 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 57 

dreams of Titian. It looked like a bed for Proserpina — a 
glow of melancholy beauty, containing a joy perhaps beyond 
joy. Poppies, with their dark ruby cups and crowned 
heads, the more than wine colour of their sleepy silk, and 
the funeral look of their anthers, seem to have a meaning 
about them beyond other flowers. They look as if they 
held a mystery at their hearts, like sleeping kings of 
Lethe. 

The church of Mitcham has been rebuilt, if I recollect 
rightly, but in the proper old style. Morden has a good 
old church, which tempted us to look into the churchyard ; 
but a rich man who lives near it, and who did not choose 
his house to be approached on that side, had locked up the 
gate, so that there was no path through it, except on Sun- 
days. Can this be a lawful exercise of power ? If people 
have a right to call any path their own, I should think it 
must be that which leads to the graves of their fathers and 
mothers ; and next to their right, such a path is the right 
of the traveller. The traveller may be in some measure 
regarded as a representative of wandering humanity. He 
claims relationship with all whom he finds attached to a 
place in idea. He and the dead are at once in a place, and 
apart from it. Setting aside this remoter sentiment, it is 
surely an inconsiderate thing in any man to shut up a 
churchyard from the villagers ; and should these pages 
meet the eye of the person in question, he is recommended 
to think better of it. Possibly I may not know the whole 
of the case, and on that account, though not that only, I 
mention no names ; for the inhabitant with whom I talked 
on the subject, and who regarded it in the same light, 
added, with a candour becoming his objections, that "the 
gentleman was a very good-natured gentleman, too, and 
kind to the poor." How his act of power squares with 
his kindness, I do not know. Very good-natured people 
are sometimes very fond of having their own way ; but this 






58 A WALK FROM DULWICH 

is a mode of indulging it, which a truly generous person, I 
should think, will, on reflection, be glad to give up. Such 
a man, I am sure, can afford to concede a point, where 
others, who do not deserve the character, will try hard to 
retain every little proof of their importance. 

On the steps of the George Inn, at Morden, the rustic 
inn of a hamlet, stood a personage much grimmer than the 
White Lion of Streatham ; looking, in fact, with his fiery 
eyes, his beak, and his old mouth and chin, very like the 
cock, or " grim leoun," of Chaucer. He was tall and thin, 
with a flapped hat over his eyes, and appeared as sulky and 
dissatisfied as if he had quarrelled with the whole world, 
the exciseman in particular. We asked him if he could let 
us have some tea. He said, " Yes, he believed so ; " and 
pointed with an indifferent, or rather hostile air, to a room 
at the side, which we entered. A buxom good-natured 
girl, with a squint, that was bewitching after the moral 
deformity of our friend's visage, served us up tea ; and 
" tea, sir," as Johnson might have said, " inspires placidity." 
The room was adorned with some engravings after Smirke, 
the subjects out of Shakspeare, which never look so well, I 
think, as when thus encountered on a journey. Shakspeare 
is in the highway of life, with exquisite side-touches of the 
remoteness of the poet ; and nobody links all kindly together 
as he does. 

We afterwards found in conversing with the villager 
above-mentioned, that our host of the George had got rich, 
and was preparing to quit for a new house he had built, in 
which he meant to turn gentleman farmer. Habit made 
him dislike to go; pride and his wife (who vowed she 
would go whether he did or not) rendered him unable to 
stay ; and so between his grudging the new-comer and the 
old rib, he was in as pretty a state of irritability as any 
successful non-succeeder need be. People had been galling 
him all day, I suppose, with showing how many pots of ale 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 59 

would be drunk under the new tenant ; and our arrival 
crowned the measure of his receipts and his wretchedness 
by intimating that " gentlefolks " intended to come to tea — 
Adieu, till next week. 

We left Morden after tea, and proceeded on our road 
for Epsom. The landscape continued flat but luxuriant. 
You are sure, I believe, of trees in Surrey, except on the 
downs ; and they are surrounded with wood, and often 
have beautiful clumps of it. The sun began to set a little 
after we had got beyond the Post-house ; and was the 
largest I remember to have seen. It looked through hedges 
of elms and wild roses ; the mowers were going home ; 
and by degrees the landscape was bathed in a balmy 
twilight. Patient and placid thought succeeded. It was 
an hour, and a scene, in which one would suppose that the 
weariest-laden pilgrim must feel his burden easier. 

About a mile from Ewell a post-chaise overtook and 
passed us, the driver of which was seated, and had taken 
up an eleemosynary girl to sit with him. Postillions run 
along a road, conscious of a pretty power in that way, and 
able to select some fair one, to whom they gallantly make a 
present of a ride. Not having a fare of one sort, they make 
it up to themselves by taking another. You may be pretty 
sure on these occasions, that there is nobody " hid in their 
vacant interlunar " chaise. So taking pity on my com- 
panions (for after I am once tired, I seem as if I could go 
on, tired for ever), I started and ran after the charioteer. 
Some good-natured peasants (they all appear such in this 
county) aided the shouts which I sent after him. He 
stopped ; and the gallantry on both sides was rewarded by 
the addition of two females to his vehicle. We were soon 
through Ewell, a pretty neat-looking place with a proper 
old church, and a handsome house opposite, new but in the 
old style. The church has trees by it, and there was a 
moon over them. — At Ewell was born the facetious Bishop 



6o A WALK FROM DULWICH 




Ha-d takers up &r\ &lcerr\oj-rna>ry £i'rl 

to j-ib -wifck Km" 



Corbet, who, when a bald man was brought before him to 
be confirmed, said, to his assistant, " Some dust, Lushing- 
ton : " — (to keep his hand from slipping). 

The night air struck cold, on passing Ewell ; and for the 
first time there was an appearance of a bleak and barren 
country to the left. This was Epsom Downs. They are 
the same as the Banstead and Leatherhead Downs, the 
name varying with the neighbourhood. You remember 
Banstead mutton ? 

" To Hounslow-heath I point, and Banstead down ; 
Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own." 

Pope seems to have lifted up his delicate nose at Twicken- 
ham, and scented his dinner a dozen miles off. 

At Epsom we supped and slept ; and finding the inn 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 61 

comfortable, and having some work to do, we stopped there 
a day or two. Do you not like those solid, wainscotted 
rooms in old houses, with seats in the windows, and no 
pretension but to comfort ? They please me exceedingly. 
Their merits are complete, if the houses are wide and low, 
and situate in a spot at once woody and dry. Wood is not 
to be expected in a high street ; but the house (the King's 
Head) was of this description ; and Epsom itself is in a 
nest of trees. Next morning on looking out of the 
window, we found ourselves in a proper country town, 
remarkably neat, the houses not old enough to be ruinous, 
nor yet to have been exchanged for new ones of a London 
character. Opposite us was the watch-house with the 
market-clock, and a pond which is said to contain gold 
and silver fish. How those delicate little creatures came 
to inhabit a pond in the middle of a town I cannot say. 
One fancies they must have been put in by the fantastic 
hand of some fine lady in the days of Charles the Second ; 
for this part of the country is eminent in the annals of 
gaiety. Charles used to come to the races here ; the 
palace of Nonesuch, which he gave to Lady Castlemain, is 
a few miles off; and here he visited the gentry in the 
neighbourhood. At Ashted Park, close by, and still in 
possession of inheritors of the name of Howard by mar- 
riage, he visited Sir Robert Howard, the brother-in-law of 
Dryden, who probably used to come there also. They 
preserved there till not long ago the table at which the king 
dined. 

This Ashted is a lovely spot, — both park and village. 
The village, or rather hamlet, is on the road to Leather- 
head ; so indeed is the park ; but the mansion is out of 
sight ; and near the mansion, and in the very thick of the 
park and the trees, with the deer running about it, is the 
village church, small, old, and picturesque, — a little stone 
tower ; and the churchyard, of proportionate dimensions, is 



62 A WALK FROM DULWICH 

beside it. When I first saw it, looking with its pointed 
windows through the trees, the surprise was beautiful. 
The inside disappoints you, not because it is so small, but 
because the accommodations and the look of them are so 
homely. The wood of the pews resembles that of an old 
kitchen dresser in colour ; the lord of the manor's being 
not a whit better than the rest. This is in good taste, 
considering the rest; and Col. Howard, who has the 
reputation of being a liberal man, probably keeps the church 
just as he found it, without thinking about the matter. At 
any rate, he does not exalt himself, in a Christian assembly, 
at the expense of his neighbours. But loving old churches 
as I do, and looking forward to a time when a Christianity 
still more worthy of the name shall be preached in them, I 
could not help wishing that the inside were more worthy of 
the out. A coat of shining walnut, a painting at one end, 
and a small organ with its dark wood and its golden-looking 
pipes at the other, would make, at no great expense to a 
wealthy man, a jewel of an interior, worthy of the lovely 
spot in which the church is situate. One cannot help 
desiring something of this kind the more, on account of 
what has been done for other village-churches in the neigh- 
bourhood, which I shall presently notice. Epsom church, 
I believe, is among them; the outside unquestionably (I 
have not seen the interior) ; and a spire has 'been added, 
which makes a pretty addition to the scenery. The only 
ornaments of Ashted church, besides two or three monu- 
ments of the Howards, are the family 'scutcheon, and that 
of His Sacred Majesty Charles the Second; which I 
suppose was put up at the time of his restoration or his 
visit, and has remained ever since, the lion still looking 
lively and threatening. One imagines the court coming to 
church, and the whole place filled with perukes and 
courtiers, with love-locks and rustling silks. Sir Robert 
is in a state of exaltation, Dryden stands near him, 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 63 

observant. Charles composes his face to the sermon, upon 
which Buckingham and Sedley are cracking almost unbear- 
able jokes behind their gloves ; and the poor village 
maidens, gaping alternately at his Majesty's sacred visage 
and the profane beauty of the Countess of Castlemain, and 
then losing their eyes among " a power " of cavaliers, " the 
handsomest men as ever was," are in a way to bring the 
hearts, thumping in their boddices, to a fine market. I 
wonder how many descendants there are of earls and mar- 
quises living this minute at Epsom ! How much noble 
blood ignobly occupied with dairies and ploughs, and 
looking gules in the cheeks of bumpkins. 

Ashted Park has some fine walnut-trees (Surrey is the 
great garden of walnuts) and one of the noblest limes I 
ever saw. The park is well kept, has a pretty lodge and 
gamekeeper's house with roses at the doors ; and a farm 
cottage, where " gentlefolks " may play at rustics. A lady 
of quality, in a boddice, gives one somehow a pretty notion ; 
especially if she has a heart high enough really to sym- 
pathise with humility. A late Earl of Exeter lived 
unknown for some time in a village, under the name of 
Jones (was not that a good name to select ?) and married a 
country girl, whom he took to Burleigh House, and then 
for the first time told her she was the mistress of it and a 
Countess ! This is a romance of real life, which has been 
deservedly envied. If I, instead of being a shattered 
student, an old intellectual soldier, " not worth a lady's 
eye," and forced to compose his frame to abide the biddings 
of his resolution, were a young fellow in the bloom of life, 
and equally clever and penniless, I cannot imagine a fortune 
of which I should be prouder, and which would give me a 
right to take a manlier aspect in the eyes of love, than to 
owe everything I had in the world, down to my very 
shoe-strings, to a woman who should have played over the 
same story with me, the sexes being reversed ; who should 



64 A WALK FROM DULWICH 

say, " You took me for a cottager, and 1 am a Countess ; 
and this is the only deception you will ever have to forgive 
me." What a pleasure to strive after daily excellence, in 
order to show one's gratitude to such a woman ; to fight for 
her ; to suffer for her ; to wear her name like a priceless jewel ; 
to hold her hand in long sickness, and look in her face when 
it has lost its beauty ; to say, questioning, "You know how I 
love you ? " and for her to answer with such a face of 
truth, that nothing but exceeding health could hinder one 
from being faint with adoring her. Alas ! why are not all 
hearts that are capable of love, rich in the knowledge how 
to show it ; which would supersede the necessity of other 
riches ? Or indeed, are not all hearts which are truly so 
capable, gifted with the riches by the capacity ? 

Forgive me this dream under the walnut-trees of Ashted 
Park ; and let us return to the colder loves of the age of Charles 
the Second. I thought to give you a good picture of Epsom, 
by turning to Shadwell's comedy of Epsom Wells ; but it 
contains nothing of any sort except a sketch of a wittol or 
two, though Sedley is said to have helped him in it, and 
though (probably on that account) it was very successful. 

Pepys, however, will supply us with a scene or 
two : — 

" 26th, Lord's Day. — Up and to the Wells, where a 
great store of citizens, which was the greatest part of the 
company, though there were some others of better quality. 
Thence I walked to Mr. Minnes's house, and thence to 
Durdan's, and walked within the court-yard &c. to the 
bowling-green, where I have seen so much mirth in my 
time ; but now no family in it (my Lord Barkeley, whose 
it is, being with his family at London). Then rode 
through Epsom, the whole town over, seeing the various 
companies that were there walking ; which is very pleasant, 
seeing how they are without knowing what to do, but only in 
the morning to drink waters, Bui Lord / to see how many 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 65 

I met there of citizens, that I could not have thought to 
have seen there ; that they had ever had it in their heads 
or purses to go down there. We went through Nonesuch 
Park to the house, and there viewed as much as we could 
of the outside, and looked through the great gates and found 
a noble court ; and altogether believe it to have been a very 
noble house, and a delicate parke about it, where just now 
there was a doe killed for the king, to carry up to court. " — 
Vol. i. p. 241. 

If the sign of the King's Head at Epsom is still where 
it used to be, it appears from another passage, that we had 
merry ghosts next door to us. 

" 14th. — To Epsom, by eight o'clock, to the Well, 
where much company. And to the town, to the King's 
Head ; and hear that my Lord Buckhurst and Nelly are 
lodged at the next house, and Sir Charles Sedley with 
them ; and keep a merry house. Poor girl ! I pity her ; 
but more the loss of her at the king's house. Here Tom 
Wilson came to me, and sat and talked an hour ; and I per- 
ceive he hath been much acquainted with Dr. Fuller (Tom), 
and Dr. Pierson, and several of the great cavalier persons 
during the late troubles ; and I was glad to hear him talk 
of them, which he did very ingenuously, and very much of 
Dr. Fuller's art of memory, which he did tell me several 
instances of. By and bye he parted, and I talked with two 
women that farmed the well at ^12 per annum, of the lord 
of the manor. Mr. Evelyn, with his lady, and also my 
Lord George Barkeley's lady, and their fine daughter, that 
the King of France liked so well, and did dance so rich in 
jewels before the king, at the ball 1 was at, at our court last 
winter, and also their son, a knight of the Bath, were at 
church this morning. I walked upon the Downs, where a 
flock of sheep was, the most pleasant and innocent sight 
that ever I saw in my life. We found a shepherd, and his 
little boy reading, free from any houses or sight of people, 

E 



66 A WALK FROM DULWICH 

the Bible to him ; and vue took notice of his knit woollen 
stockings, of two colours mixed." — Vol. ii. p. 92. 

This place was still in high condition at the beginning of 
the next century, as appears from Toland's account of it, 
quoted in the History of Epsom, by an Inhabitant. After a 
" flowery," as the writer justly calls it, but perhaps not 
undeserved account of the pleasures of the place, outside as 
well as in, he says — 

" The two rival bowling-greens are not to be forgotten, 
on which all the company, after diverting themselves in the 
morning, according to their fancies, make a gallant appear- 
ance every evening, especially on the Saturday and Monday. 
Here are also raffling-tables, with music playing most of the 
day ; and the nights are generally crowned with dancing. 
All newcomers are awakened out of their sleep the first 
morning, by the same music, which goes to welcome them 
to Epsom. 

" You would think yourself in some enchanted camp, to 
see the peasants ride to every house, with choicest fruits, 
herbs, and flowers ; with all sorts of tame and wild fowl, the 
rarest fish and venison ; and with every kind of butcher's 
meat, among which the Banstead Down mutton is the most 
relishing dainty. 

" Thus to see the fresh and artless damsels of the plain, 
either accompanied by their amorous swains or aged 
parents, striking their bargains with the nice court and 
city ladies, who, like queens in a tragedy, display all their 
finery on benches before their doors (where they hourly 
censure and are censured) ; and to observe how the 
handsomest of each degree equally admire, envy, and cozen 
one another, is to me one of the chief amusements of the 
place. 

" The ladies who are too lazy or stately, but especially 
those who sit up late at cards, have their provisions brought 
to their bedside, where they conclude the bargain with the 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 67 

higgler ; and then (perhaps after a dish of chocolate) take 
another nap until what they have thus purchased is prepared 
for dinner. 

" Within a mile and a half of Epsom, is the place, and 
only the place, where the splendid mansion of Nonesuch 
lately stood. A great part of it, however, stood in my 
own time, and I have spoken with those who saw it 
entire. 

" But not to quit our Downs for any court, the great 
number of gentlemen and ladies that take the air every 
morning and evening on horseback, and that range, either 
singly or in separate companies, over every hill and dale, is 
a most entertaining object. 

" But whether you gently wander over my favourite 
meadows, planted on all sides quite to Woodcote Seat (in 
whose long grove I oftenest converse with myself) ; or 
walk further on to Ashted house and park ; or ride still 
farther to Box-hill, that enchanting temple of Nature ; or 
whether you lose yourself in the aged yew-groves of 
Mickleham, or try your patience in angling for trout about 
Leatherhead ; whether you go to some cricket-match, and 
other sports of contending villagers, or choose to breathe 
your,, horse at a race, and to follow a pack of hounds at 
the proper season ; whether, I say, you delight in any one 
or every of these, Epsom is the place you must like before 
all others." 

Congreve has a letter addressed " to Mrs. Hunt at 
Epsom." This was Arabella Hunt, the lady to whom he 
addressed an ode on her singing, and with whom he appears 
to have been in love. 

Epsom has still its races ; but the Wells (not far from 
Ashted Park), though retaining their property, and giving 
a name to a medicine, have long been out of fashion. 
Individuals, however, I believe, still resort to them. Their 
site is occupied by a farm-house, in which lodgings are to 



68 A WALK FROM DULWICH 

be had. Close to Ashted Park is that of Woodcote, 
formerly the residence of the notorious Lord Baltimore, the 
last man of quality in England who had a taste for abduc- 
tion. Of late our aspirants after figure and fortune seem to 
have been ambitious of restoring the practice from Ireland. 
It is their mode of conducting the business of life. Abduc- 
tion, they think, " must be attended to." 

From Woodc'ote Green, a pretty sequestered spot, be- 
tween this park and the town, rooks are said to have been 
first taken to the Temple Gardens by Sir William Northey, 
secretary to Queen Anne. How heightened is the pleasure 
given you by the contemplation of a beautiful spot, when 
you think it has been the means of conferring a good else- 
where ! I would rather live near a rookery, which had 
sent out a dozen colonies, than have the solitary idea of 
them complete. In solitude you crave after human good ; 
and here a piece of it, however cheap in the eyes of the 
scornful, has been conferred ; for Sir William's colony 
flourish, it seems, in the smoke of London. Rooks always 
appeared to me the clergymen among birds ; grave, black- 
coated, sententious ; with an eye to a snug sylvan abode, and 
plenty of tithes. Their clerkly character is now mixed up 
in my imagination with something of the lawyer. They 
and the lawyers' " studious bowers," as Spenser calls the 
Temple, appear to suit one another. Did you ever notice, 
by the way, what a soft and pleasant sound there is in the 
voices of the young rooks — a sort of kindly chuckle, like that 
of an infant being fed ? 

At Woodcote Green is Durdans, the seat mentioned in 
Pepys as belonging to Lord Berkeley, now the residence of 
Sir Gilbert Heathcote, and said to have been built (with 
several other mansions) of the materials of Nonesuch, when 
that palace was pulled down. It is one of those solid 
country houses, wider than tall, and of shining brickwork, 
that retain at once a look of age and newness ; promise well 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 69 

for domestic comfort ; and suit a good substantial garden. 
In coming upon it suddenly, and looking at it through the 
great iron gates and across a round plat of grass and flowers, 
it seems a personification of the solid country squire him- 
self, not without elegance, sitting under his trees. When I 
looked at it, and thought of the times of Charles II., I 
could not help fancying that it must have belonged to the 
" Dame Durdan " of the old glee, who had such a loving 
household. 

There is a beautiful walk from Woodcote Green to 
Ashted, through the park, and then (crossing the road) 
through fields and woody lanes to Leatherhead ; but in 
going, we went by the road. As we were leaving Epsom, 
a girl was calling the bees to swarm, with a brass pan. 
Larks accompanied us all the way. The fields were full 
of clover ; there was an air on our faces, the days being at 
once fine and gently clouded ; and in passing through a 
lovely country, we were conscious of going to a lovelier. 

At Leatherhead begin the first local evidences of hill and 
valley, with which the country is now enriched. The 
modern way of spelling the name of this town renders it a 
misnomer and a dishonour, and has been justly resented by 
the antiquarian taste of Mr. Dallaway, the vicar, who makes 
it a point, they say, to restore the old spelling, Lethered. 
I believe he supposes it to come anagramatically from the 
Saxon name Ethelred ; a thing not at all improbable, trans- 
formations of that sort having been common in old times. 
(See the annotations on Chaucer and Redi.) An Ethelred 
perhaps had a seat at this place. Epsom, formerly written 
Ebsham and Ebbesham (Fuller so writes it), is said to have 
been named from Ebba, a Saxon princess, who had a palace 
there. Ebba, I suppose, is the same as Emma, cum gratia 
Matbenvs. 

Leatherhead, like all the towns that let lodgings during 
the races, is kept very neat and nice ; and though not quite 



7 o A WALK FROM DULWICH 

so woody as Epsom, is in a beautiful country, and has to 
boast of the river Mole. It has also a more venerable 
church. Mr. Dallaway, like a proper antiquary, has re- 
freshed the interior, without spoiling it. Over the main 
pew is preserved, together with his helmet, an inscription 
in old English letters, to the memory of " frendly Robert 
Gardner," chief Serjeant of the " Seller ," in the year 
1 57 1. This was in the time of Elizabeth. A jovial 
successor of his is also recorded, to wit, " Richard Dalton, 
Esq., Serjeant of the Wine Cellar to King Charles II." 
But it is on the memory of the other sex that Leatherhead 
church ought to pride itself. Here are buried three sister 
Beauclercs, daughters of Lord Henry Beauclerc, who 
appear to have been three quiet, benevolent old maids, 
who followed one another quietly to the grave, and had 
lived, doubtless, the admiration rather than the envy of the 
village damsels. Here also lies Miss Cholmondeley, another 
old maid, but merry withal, and the delight of all that knew 
her, who, by one of those frightful accidents that suddenly 
knock people's souls out, and seem more frightful when they 
cut short the career of the good-natured, was killed on the 
spot, at the entrance of this village, by the overturning of 
the Princess Charlotte's coach, whom she was accompanying 
on a visit to Norbury Park. A most affectionate epitaph, 
honourable to all parties, and recording her special attach- 
ment to her married sister, is inscribed to her memory by 
her brother-in-law, Sir William Bellingham, I think. But 
above all, " Here lies all that is mortal " (to use the words 
of the tombstone) " of Mrs. Elizabeth Rolfe," of Dover, 
in Kent, who departed this life in the sixty-seventh year of 
her age, and was " interred by her own desire at the side 
of her beloved Cousin, Benefactress, and Friend, Lady 
Catharine Thompson, with whom she buried all worldly 
happiness. This temporary separation," continues the 
epitaph, " no engagements, no pursuits, could render less 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 71 

bitter to the disconsolate Mrs. Rolfe, who from the hour 
she lost her other self knew no pleasures but in the hopes 
she cherished (on which point her eyes were ever fixed) 
of joining her friend in the region of unfading Felicity. 
Blessed with the Power and Will to succour the distressed, 
she exercised both ; and in these exercises only found a 
Ray of Happiness. Let the Ridiculers of Female Friend- 
ship read this honest Inscription, which disdains to flatter." 
— A record in another part informs us, that Mrs. Rolfe gave 
the parish the interest of ^400 annually in memory of the 
above, so long as the parish preserves the marble that 
announces the gift, and the stone that covers her grave. 
Talking with the parish-clerk, who was otherwise a right 
and seemly parish-clerk, elderly and withered, with a proper 
brown wig, he affected, like a man of this world, to speak 
in disparagement of the phrase "her other self," which 
somebody had taught him to consider romantic, and an 
exaggeration. This was being a little too much of " the 
earth, earthy." The famous parish-clerk of St Andrews, 
one of the great professors of humanity in the times of the 
Deckars and Shakspeares, would have talked in a different 
strain. There is some more of the epitaph, recommencing 
in a style somewhat " to seek," and after the meditative 
Burleigh fashion, in the Critic ; but this does not hinder 
the rest from being true, or Mrs. Rolfe and my lady 
Thompson from being two genuine human beings, and 
among the salt of the earth. There is more friendship 
and virtue in the world than the world has yet got wisdom 
enough to know and be proud of; and few things would 
please me better than to travel all over England, and fetch 
out the records of it. 

I must not omit to mention that Elinor Rummyn, illus- 
trious in the tap-room pages of " Skelton, Laureate," kept 
a house in this village ; and that Mr. Dallaway has em- 
blazoned the fact, for the benefit of antiquarian travellers, 



72 A WALK FROM DULWICH 

in the shape of her portrait, with an inscription upon it. 
The house is the Running Horse, near the bridge. 

The luxuriance of the country now increases at every 
step towards Dorking, which is five miles from Leatherhead. 
You walk through a valley with hills on one side and wood 
all about ; and on your right hand is the Mole, running 
through fields and flowery hedges. These hills are the 
turfy downs of Norbury Park, the gate of which you soon 
arrive at. It is modern, but in good retrospective taste, 
and stands out into the road with one of those round over- 
hanging turrets, which seem held forth by the old hand of 
hospitality. A little beyond, you arrive at the lovely village 
of Mickleham, small, sylvan, and embowered, with a little 
fat church (for the epithet comes involuntarily at the sight 
of it), as short and plump as the fattest of its vicars may 
have been, with a disproportionate bit of a spire on the top, 
as if he had put on an extinguisher instead of a hat. The 
inside has been renewed in the proper taste as though Mr. 
Dallaway had had a hand in it ; and there is an organ, which 
is more than Leatherhead can boast. The organist is the 
son of the parish clerk ; and when I asked his sister, a 
modest, agreeable-looking girl, who showed us the church, 
whether he could not favour us with a voluntary, she told 
me he was making hay ! What do you say to that ? I 
think this is a piece of Germanism for you. Her father 
was a day-labourer, like the son, and had become organist 
before him, out of a natural love of music. I had fetched 
the girl from her tea. A decent-looking young man was 
in the room with her ; the door was open, exhibiting the 
homely comforts inside ; a cat slept before it, on the cover 
of the garden well, and there was plenty of herbs and 
flowers, presenting altogether the appearance of a cottage 
nest. I will be bound that their musical refinements are a 
great help to the enjoyment of all this ; and that a general 
lift in their tastes, instead of serving to dissatisfy the poor, 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 73 

would have a reverse effect, by increasing the sum of their 
resources. It would, indeed, not help to blind them to 
whatever they might have reason to ask or to complain of. 
Why should it ? But it would refine them there also, and 
enable them to obtain it more happily, through the means of 
the diffusion of knowledge on all sides. 

The mansion of Norbury Park, formerly the seat of Mr. 
Locke, who appears to have had a deserved reputation for 
taste in the fine arts (his daughter married an Angerstein), 
is situate on a noble elevation upon the right of the village 
of Mickleham. Between the grounds and the road, are 
glorious slopes and meadows, superabundant in wood, and 
pierced by the river Mole. In coming back we turned up 
a path into them, to look at a farm that was to be let. It 
belongs to a gentleman, celebrated in the neighbourhood, 
and we believe elsewhere, for his powers of " conversation," 
but this we did not know at the time. He was absent, and 
had left his farm in the hands of his steward, to be let for a 
certain time. The house was a cottage, and furnished as 
becomes a cottage ; but one room we thought would make 
a delicious study. Probably it is one ; for there were books 
and an easy-chair in it. The window looked upon a close 
bit of lawn, shut in with trees, and round the walls hung a 
set of prints from Raphael. This looked as if the possessor 
had something to say for himself. 

We were now in the bosom of the scenery for which 
this part of the country is celebrated. Between Mickleham 
and Dorking, on the left is the famous Box Hill, so called 
from the trees that grow on it. Part of it presents great 
bald pieces of chalk ; but on the side of Mickleham it has 
one truly noble aspect, a "verdurous wall," which looks 
the higher for its being precipitous, and from its having 
somebody's house at the foot of it — a white little 
mansion in a world of green. Otherwise, the size of this 
hill disappointed us. The river Mole runs at the foot of 



74 A WALK FROM DULWICH 

it. This river, so called from taking part of its course 
under ground, does not plunge into the earth at once, as 
most people suppose. So at least Dr. Aikin informs us, for 
I did not look into the matter myself. He says it loses 
itself in the ground at various points about the neighbour- 
hood, and rises again on the road to Leatherhead. I pro- 
test against its being called " sullen," in spite of what the 
poets have been pleased to call it for hiding itself. It is 
a good and gentle stream, flowing through luxuriant banks, 
and clear enough where the soil is gravelly. It hides, just 
as the nymph might hide ; and Drayton gives it a good 
character, if I remember. Unfortunately I have him not 
by me. 

The town of Dorking disappointed us, especially one of 
us, who was a good deal there when a child, and who 
found new London-looking houses started up in the place 
of old friends. The people also appeared not so pleasant 
as their countrymen in general, nor so healthy. There are 
more King's and Duke's Heads in the neighbourhood ; signs, 
which doubtless came in with the Restoration. The Leg 
of Mutton is the favourite hieroglyphic about the Downs. 
Dorking is famous for a breed of fowls with six toes. I 
do not know whether they have any faculty at counting 
their grain. We did not see Leith Hill, which is the 
great station for a prospect hereabouts, and upon which 
Dennis the critic made a lumbering attempt to be lively. 
You may see it in the two volumes of letters belonging to 
N. He u blunders round about a meaning," and en- 
deavours to act the part of an inspired Cicerone, with 
oratorical " flashes in the pan." One or two of his 
attempts to convey a particular impression are very 
ludicrous. Just as you think you are going to catch an 
idea, they slide off into hopeless generality. Such at least 
is my impression from what I remember. I regret that I 
could not meet at Epsom or Leatherhead with a Dorking 



A WALK FROM DULWICH 75 

Guide, which has been lately published, and which, I be- 
lieve, is a work of merit. In the town itself I had not 
time to think of it ; otherwise I might have had some 
better information to give you regarding spots in the neigh- 
bourhood, and persons who have added to their interest. 

One of these, however, I know. Turning off to the 
left for Brockham, we had to go through Betchworth Park, 
formerly the seat of Abraham Tucker, one of the most 
amiable and truth-loving of philosophers. Mr Hazlitt 
made an abridgment of his principal work : but original and 
abridgment are both out of print. The latter, I should 
think, would sell now, when the public begin to be tired of 
the eternal jangling and insincerity of criticism, and would 
fain hear what an honest observer has to say. It would 
only require to be well advertised, not puffed ; for puffing, 
thank God, besides being a very unfit announcer of truth, 
has well-nigh cracked its cheeks. 

Betchworth Castle is now in the possession of Mr. 
Barclay the brewer, a descendant, if I mistake not, of the 
famous Barclay of Urie, the Apologist of the Quakers. 
If this gentleman is the same as the one mentioned in 
BoswelPs " Life of Johnson," he is by nature, as well as 
descent, worthy of occupying the abode of a wise man. 
Or if he is not, why shouldn't he be worthy after his 
fashion ? You remember the urbane old bookworm, who, 
conversing with a young gentleman, more remarkable for 
gentility than beauty, and understanding for the first time 
that he had sisters, said, in a transport of the gratuitous, 
"Doubtless very charming young ladies, sir." I will not 
take it for granted, that all the Barclays are philosophers ; 
but something of a superiority to the vulgar, either in 
talents or the love of them, may be more reasonably ex- 
pected in this kind of hereditary rank than the common 
one. 

With Mr. Tucker and his chestnut groves I will con- 



76 A WALK FROM DULWICH 

elude, having, in fact, nothing to say of Brockham, except 
that it was the boundary of our walk. Yes ; I have one 
thing, and a pleasant one ; which is, that I met there by 
chance, with the younger brother of a family whom I had 
known in my childhood, and who are eminent to this day 
for a certain mixture of religion and joviality, equally un- 
common and good-hearted. May old and young continue 
not to know which shall live the longest. I do not mean 
religion or joviality ! but both in their shape. 

Believe me, dear sir, very truly yours. — Mine is not so 
novel or luxurious a journey as the one you treated us with 
the other day ; 1 which I mention, because one journey 
always makes me long for another ; and I hope not many 
years will pass over your head before you give us a second 
Ramble, in which I may see Italy once again, and hear 
with more accomplished ears the sound of her music. 

1 See " A Ramble among the Musicians in Germany," a work 
full of gusto. 



j i M . 




SUNDAY IN THE SUBURBS 

BEING MORE LAST WORDS ON "SUNDAY 
IN LONDON": WITH A DIGRESSION 
ON THE NAME OF SMITH. 

In writing our articles on this subject, we have been so 
taken up, first with the dull look of the Sunday streets, and 
afterwards with the lovers who make their walls lively on 
the hidden side, that we fairly overlooked a feature in our 
Metropolitan Sabbath, eminently sabbatical ; to wit, the 
suburbs and their holiday-makers. What a thing to forget ! 
What a thing to forget, even if it concerned only Smith in 
his new hat and boots ! Why, he has been thinking of 

77 



78 SUNDAY IN THE SUBURBS 

them all the week ; and how could we, who sympathise 
with all the Smith-ism and boots in existence, forget them ? 
The hatter did not bring home his hat till last night, the 
bootmaker his boots till this morning. How did not Smith 
(and he is a shrewd fellow too, and reads us) pounce upon 
the hatbox, undo its clinging pasteboard lid, whisk off the 
silver paper, delicately develop the dear beaver, and put it 
on before the glass ! The truth must be owned : — he sate 
in it half supper-time. Never was such a neat fit. All 
Aldersgate, and the City Road, and the New Road, and 
Camden and Kentish towns, glided already before him, as 
he went along in it, — hatted in thought. He could have 
gone to sleep in it, — if it would not have spoiled his nap, and 
its own. 

Then his boots ! — Look at him. — There he goes — up 
Somers Town. Who would suspect, from the ease and 
superiority of his countenance, that he had not had his boots 
above two hours, — that he had been a good fourth part of 
the time labouring and fetching the blood up in his face 
with pulling them on with his boot-hooks, — and that at this 
moment they horribly pinch him ! But he has a small foot 
— has Jack Smith ; and he would squeeze, jam, and damn 
it into a thimble, rather than acknowledge it to be a bit 
larger than it seems. 

Do not think ill of him, especially you that are pinched 
a little less. Jack has sympathies ; and as long as the 
admiration of the community runs towards little feet and 
well-polished boots, he cannot dispense, in those quarters, 
with the esteem of his fellow-men. As the sympathies 
enlarge, Jack's boots will grow wider ; and we venture to 
prophesy, that at forty he will care little for little feet, and 
much for his corns and the public good. We are the more 
bold in this anticipation, from certain reminiscences we have 
of boots of our own. We shall not enter into details, for 
fear of compromising the dignity of literature ; but the good- 



SUNDAY IN THE SUBURBS 79 

natured may think of them what they please. Non ignara 
malt (said Dido), miseris succurrere disco: that is, having 
known what it was to wear shoes too small herself, she 
should never measure, for her part, the capabilities of a 
woman's head, by the pettiness of her slippers. 

Napoleon was proud of a little foot ; and Caesar, in his 
youth, was a dandy. So go on, Smith, and bear your tor- 
tures like a man ; especially towards one o'clock, when it 
will be hot and dusty. 

Smith does not carry a cane with a twist at the top of it 
for a handle. That is for an inferior grade of holiday- 
maker, who pokes about the suburbs, gaping at the new 
buildings, or treats his fellow-servant to a trip to White 
Conduit House, and an orange by the way — always too 
sour. Smith has a stick or a whanghee ; or, if he rides, 
a switch. He is not a good rider ; and we must say it is 
his own fault, for he rides only on Sundays, and will not 
scrape acquaintance with the ostler on other days of the 
week. You may know him on horseback by the brisk 
forlornness of his steed, the inclined plane of his body, the 
extreme outwardness or inwardness of his toes, and an 
expression of face betwixt ardour, fear, and indifference. 
He is the most without a footman of any man in the world : 
that is to say, he has the most excessive desire to be taken 
for a man who ought to have one ; and, therefore, the space 
of road behind him pursues him, as it were, with the 
reproach of its emptiness. 

A word, by the way, as to our use of the generic name 
" Smith." A correspondent wrote to us the other day, 
intimating that it would be a good-natured thing if we 
refrained in future from designating classes of men by the 
name of " Tomkins." We know not whether he was 
a Tomkins himself, or whether he only felt for some friend 
of that name, or for the whole body of the Tomkinses ; all 
we know is, that he has taken the word out of our mouth 



8o SUNDAY IN THE SUBURBS 

for ever. How many paragraphs he may have ruined by 
it, we cannot say ; but the truth is, he has us on our weak 
side. We can resist no appeal to our good -nature made by 
a good-natured man. Besides, we like him for the serious- 
ness and good faith with which he took the matter to heart, 
and for the niceness of his sympathy. Adieu, then, name 
of Tomkins ! Jenkins also, for a like respectful reason, we 
shall abstain from in future. But let nobody interfere in 
behalf of Smith, for Smith does not want it. Smith is too 
universal. Even a John Smith could not regard the use of 
his name as personal ; for John Smith, as far as his name is 
concerned, has no personality. He is a class, a huge body ; 
he has a good bit of the Directory to himself. You may 
see for pages together (if our memory does not deceive us) 
John Smith, John Smith, John Smith, or rather, 

Smith, John, 

Smith, John, 

Smith, John, 

Smith, John, 

Smith, John, 

Smith, John, 
and so on, with everlasting Smith-Johnism, like a set of 
palisades or iron rails ; almost as if you could make them 
clink as you go, with drawing something along them. The 
repetition is dazzling. The monotony bristles with same- 
ness. It is a chevaux-de- Smith. John Smith in short, is so 
public and multitudinous a personage, that we do not hesitate 
to say we know an excellent individual of that name, whose 
regard we venture thus openly to boast of, without fearing 
to run any danger of offending his modesty : for nobody 
will know whom we mean. An Italian poet says he hates 
the name of John, because if anybody calls him by it in the 
street, twenty people look out of window. Now let anybody 
call "John Smith ! " and half Holborn will cry out " Well ? " 
As to other and famous Smiths, they are too strongly 



SUNDAY IN THE SUBURBS 81 

marked out by their fame, sometimes by their Christian 
names, and partly, indeed, by the uncommon lustre they 
attain through their very commonness, to make us at all 
squeamish in helping ourselves to their generic appellation at 
ordinary times. Who will ever think of confounding Smith, 
in the abstract, with Adam Smith, or Sir Sydney Smith, or 
the Reverend Sydney Smith, or James and Horace Smith, 
or Dr South wood Smith, or any other concretion of wit, 
bravery, or philosophy ? 

By this time, following, as we talk, our friend Jack up 
the road, we arrive at the first suburb tea-gardens, which 
he, for his part, passes with disdain ; not our friend, John 
Smith, be it observed, for his philosophy is as universal as 
his name, but Jack Smith, our friend of the new hat and 
boots. And yet he will be a philosopher, too, by and by ; and 
his boots shall help him to philosophise, but all in good time. 
Meanwhile, we who are old enough to consult our inclina- 
tion in preference to our grandeur, turn into the tea-gardens, 
where there is no tea going forward and not much garden, but 
worlds of beer, and tobacco-pipes, and alcoves ; and in a 
corner behind some palings there is (we fear) a sound of 
skittles. May no unchristian christian hear it, who is 
twirling his thumbs, or listening to the ring of his wine- 
glasses. How hot the people look ! how unpinned the 
goodly old dames ! how tired, yet untired, the children ! 
and how each alcove opens upon you as you pass, with its 
talk, smoke, beer, and bad paint ! Then what a feast to 
their eyes is the grass-plat ! Truly, without well knowing 
it, do they sit down almost as much to the enjoyment of 
that green table of Nature's in the midst of them, as to 
their tobacco and " half-and-half." It is something which 
they do not see all the rest of the week ; the first bit of 
grass, of any size, which they come to from home ; and here 
they stop and are content. For our parts, we wish they 
would go further, as Smith does, and get fairly out in the 



82 SUNDAY IN THE SUBURBS 

fields ; but they will do that, as they become freer, and 
wiser, and more comfortable, and learn to know and love 
what the wild-flowers have to say to them. At present 
how should they be able to hear those small angelic voices, 
when their ears are ringing with stocking-frames and crying 
children, and they are but too happy in their tired -hearted- 
ness to get to the first bit of holiday ground they can 
reach ? 

We come away, and mingle with the crowds returning 
home, among whom we recognise our friend of the twisted 
cane, and his lass, who looks the reddest, proudest, and most 
assured of maid-servants, and sometimes " snubs " him a 
little, out loud, to show her power ; though she loves every 
blink of his eye. Yonder is a multitude collected round a 
Methodist preacher, whom they think far " behind his age," 
extremely ignorant of yesterday's unstamped, but " well- 
meaning," a " poor mistaken fellow, sir ; " and they will 
not have him hustled by the police. Lord X. should hear 
what they say. It might put an idea in his head. 

The gas-lights begin to shine ; the tide of the crowd 
grows thinner ; chapel-windows are lit up ; maid-servants 
stand in doorways ; married couples carry their children, or 
dispute about them ; and children, not carried, cry for spite, 
and jumble their souls out. 

As for Smith, he is in some friend's room, very comfort- 
able, with his brandy and water beside him, his coloured 
handkerchief on his knee, and his boots intermittent. 1 

1 Intermit — " To grow mild between the fits or paroxysms."— 
Johnson. 




AJDVICE TO THE MELANCHOLY 



If you are melancholy for the first time, you will find upon 
a little inquiry, that others have been melancholy many times, 
and yet are cheerful now. If you have been melancholy 
many times, recollect that you have got over all those times ; 
and try if you cannot find out means of getting over them 
better. 

Do not imagine that mind alone is concerned in your bad 
spirits. The body has a great deal to do with these 
matters. The mind may undoubtedly affect the body ; but 
the body also affects the mind. There is a reaction between 
them ; and by lessening it on either side, you diminish the 
pain on both. 

If you are melancholy, and know not why, be assured it 
must arise entirely from some physical weakness ; and do 
your best to strengthen yourself. The blood of a melan- 
choly man is thick and slow ; the blood of a lively man is 
clear and quick. Endeavour therefore to put your blood in 

83 



84 ADVICE TO THE MELANCHOLY 

motion. Exercise is the best way to do it ; but you may 
also help yourself, in moderation, with wine, or other ex- 
citements. Only you must take care so to proportion the 
use of any artificial stimulus, that it may not render the 
blood languid by over-exciting it at first ; and that you may 
be able to keep up, by the natural stimulus only, the help 
you have given yourself by the artificial. 

Regard the bad weather as somebody has advised us to 
handle the nettle. In proportion as you are delicate with it, 
it will make you feel ; but 

" Grasp it like a man of mettle, 
And the rogue obeys you well." 

Do not the less, however, on that account, take all 
reasonable precaution and arms against it — your boots, etc., 
against wet feet, and your great- coat or umbrella against the 
rain. It is timidity and flight which are to be deprecated, 
not proper armour for the battle. The first will lay you 
open to defeat, on the least attack. A proper use of the 
latter will only keep you strong for it. Plato had such a 
high opinion of exercise, that he said it was a cure even for 
a wounded conscience. Nor is this opinion a dangerous 
one. For there is no system, even of superstition, however 
severe or cruel in other matters, that does not allow a 
wounded conscience to be curable by some means. Nature 
will work out its rights and its kindness some way or other, 
through the worst sophistications ; and this is one of the 
instances in which she seems to raise herself above all con- 
tingencies. The conscience may have been wounded by 
artificial or by real guilt ; but then she will tell it in those ex- 
tremities, that even the real guilt may have been produced by 
circumstances. It is her kindness alone, which nothing can 
pull down from its predominance. 

See fair play between cares and pastimes. Diminish your 
artificial wants as much as possible, whether you are rich or 



ADVICE TO THE MELANCHOLY 85 

poor ; for the rich man's, increasing by indulgence, are apt 
to outweigh even the abundance of his means, and the poor 
man's diminution of them renders his means the greater. 
On the other hand, increase all your natural and healthy 
enjoyments. Cultivate your afternoon fireside, the society 
of your friends, the company of agreeable children, music, 
theatres, amusing books, an urbane and generous gallantry. 
He who thinks any innocent pastime foolish, has either to 
grow wiser or is past the ability to do so. In the one case, 
his notion of being childish is itself a childish notion. In 
the other, his importance is of so feeble and hollow a cast, 
that it dare not move for fear of tumbling to pieces. 

A friend of ours, who knows as well as any man how to 
unite industry with enjoyment, has set an excellent example 
to those who can afford the leisure, by taking two Sabbaths 
every week instead of one, — not Methodistical Sabbaths, but 
days of rest which pay true homage to the Supreme Being 
by enjoying His creation. 

One of the best pieces of advice for an ailing spirit is to 
go to no sudden extremes — to adopt no great and extreme 
changes in diet or other habits. They may make a man 
look very great and philosophic to his own mind ; but they 
are not fit for a being, to whom custom has been truly said 
#0 be a second nature. Dr Cheyne may tell us that a 
drowning man cannot too quickly get himself out of the 
water ; but the analogy is not good. If the water has 
become a second habit he might almost as well say that a 
fish could not get too quickly out of it. 

Upon this point, Bacon says that we should discontinue 
what we think hurtful by little and little. And he quotes 
with admiration the advice of Celsus, that " a man do vary 
and interchange contraries, but rather with an inclination to 
the more benign extreme." " Use fasting," he says, "and 
full eating, but rather full eating ; watching and sleep, but 
rather sleep ; sitting and exercise, but rather exercise, and 



86 ADVICE TO THE MELANCHOLY 

the like ; so shall nature be cherished, and yet taught 
masteries." 

We cannot do better than conclude with one or two 
other passages out of the same Essay, full of his usual calm 
wisdom. " If you fly physic in health altogether, it will be 
too strange for your body when you need it." (He means 
that a general state of health should not make us over-con- 
fident and contemptuous of physic ; but that we should use 
it moderately if required, that it may not be too strange to 
us when required most.) "If you make it too familiar, it 
will have no extraordinary effect when sickness cometh. I 
commend rather some diet for certain seasons, than frequent 
use of physic, except it be grown into a custom ; for those 
diets alter the body more and trouble it less." 

" As for the passions and studies of the mind," says he, 
" avoid envy, anxious fears, anger fretting inwards, subtle 
and knotty inquisitions, joys and exhilarations in excess, 
sadness not communicated " (for as he says finely, some- 
where else, they who keep their griefs to themselves, are 
"cannibals of their own hearts"). "Entertain hopes; 
mirth rather than joy ; " (that is to say, cheerfulness rather 
than boisterous merriment) ; "variety of delights rather 
than surfeit of them ; wonder and admiration, and therefore 
novelties ; studies that fill the mind with splendid and 
illustrious objects, as histories, fables, and contemplations 
of nature." 




OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS 



Though we are such lovers of the country, we can admire 
London in some points of view ; and among others, from 
the entertainment to be derived from its shops. Their 
variety and brilliancy can hardly fail of attracting the most 
sluggish attention : and besides reasons of this kind, we 
can never look at some of them without thinking of the 
gallant figure they make in the Arabian Nights, with their 
bazaars and bezesteins ; where the most beautiful of un- 
knowns goes shopping in a veil, and the most graceful of 
drapers is taken blindfold to see her. He goes, too smitten 
at heart to think of the danger of his head ; and finds her 
seated among her slaves (exquisite themselves, only very 
inferior), upon which she encourages him to sit near her, 
and lutes are played ; upon which he sighs, and cannot help 
looking tenderly ; upon which she claps her hands, and a 
charming collation is brought in ; upon which they eat, but 

8 7 



88 OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS 

not much. A dance ensues, and the ocular sympathy is 
growing tenderer, when an impossible old woman appears, 
and says that the Sultan is coming. Alas ! How often 
have we been waked up, in the person of the young draper 
or jeweller, by that ancient objection ! How have we re- 
ceived the lady in the veil, through which we saw nothing 
but her dark eyes and rosy cheeks ! How have we sat 
cross-legged on cushions, hearing or handling the lute, 
whose sounds faded away like our enamoured eyes ! How 
often have we not lost our hearts and left hands, like one of 
the Calendars ? Or an eye, like another ? Or a head ; 
and resumed it at the end of the story? Or slept (no, not 
slept) in the Sultan's garden at Schiraz with the fair Persian. 
But to return (as well as such enamoured persons can) 
to our shops. We prefer the country a million times over 
for walking in generally, especially if we have the friends 
in it that enjoy it as well ; but there are seasons when the 
very streets may vie with it. If you have been solitary, 
for instance, for a long time, it is pleasant to get among 
your fellow-creatures again, even to be jostled and elbowed. 
If you live in town, and the weather is showery, you 
may get out in the intervals of rain, and then a quickly- 
dried pavement and a set of brilliant shops are pleasant. 
Nay, we have known days, even in spring, when a street 
shall outdo the finest aspects of the country ; but then it is 
only when the ladies are abroad, and there happens to be a 
run of agreeable faces that day. For whether it is fancy 
or not, or whether certain days do not rather bring out 
certain people, it is a common remark, that one morning 
you shall meet a succession of good looks, and another 
encounter none but the reverse. We do not merely speak 
of handsome faces ; but of those which are charming, or 
otherwise, whatever be the cause. We suppose, that the 
money-takers are all abroad one day, and the heart-takers 
the other. 



OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS 89 

It is to be observed, that we are not speaking of utility 
in this article, except indeed the great utility of agreeable- 
ness. A candid leather-cutter therefore will pardon us, if 
we do not find anything very attractive in his premises. 
So will his friend the shoemaker, who is bound to like us 
rural pedestrians. A stationer too, on obvious accounts, 
will excuse us for thinking his a very dull and bald-headed 
business. We cannot bear the horribly neat monotony of 
his shelves, with their load of virgin paper, their slates and 
slate-pencils that set one's teeth on edge, their pocket- 
books, and above all, their detestable ruled account-books, 
which at once remind one of the necessity of writing, and 
the impossibility of writing anything pleasant on such pages. 
The only agreeable thing, in a stationer's shop, when it has 
it, is the ornamental work, the card-racks, hand-screens, 
etc., which remind us of the fair morning fingers that 
paste and gild such things, and surprise their aunts with 
presents of flowery boxes. But we grieve to add, that 
the prints which the stationers furnish for such elegancies, 
are not in the very highest taste. They are apt to deviate 
too scrupulously from the originals. Their well-known 
heads become too anonymous. Their young ladies have 
casts in their eyes, a little too much on one side even for 
the sidelong divinities of Mr Harlowe. 

In a hatter's shop we can see nothing but the hats ; and 
the reader is acquainted with our pique against them. The 
beaver is a curious animal, but the idea of it is not enter- 
taining enough to convert a window full of those requisite 
nuisances into an agreeable spectacle. It is true, a hatter, 
like some other tradesmen, may be pleasanter himself, by 
reason of the adversity of his situation. We cannot say 
more for the oW-shop next door, — a name justly pro- 
vocative of a pun. It is customary, however, to have sign- 
paintings of Adam" and Eve at these places; which is some 
relief to the monotony of the windows ; only they remind 



9 o OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS 

us but too well of these cruel necessities to which they 
brought us. The baker's next ensuing is a very dull shop, 
much inferior to the gingerbread baker's, whose parliament 
we used to munch at school. The tailor's makes one as 
melancholy to look at it, as the sedentary persons within. 
The hosier's is worse ; particularly if it has a Golden 
Leg over it; for that precious limb is certainly not symbolical 
of the weaver's. The windows, half board and half dusty 
glass, which abound in the City, can scarcely be turned to 
a purpose of amusement, even by the most attic of dry- 
salters. We own we have half a longing to break them, 
and let in the light of nature upon their recesses ; whether 
they belong to those more piquant gentlemen, or to bankers, 
or any other high and wholesale personages. A light in one 
of these windows in the morning is, to us, one of the very 
dismallest reflections on humanity. We wish we could 
say something for a tallow-chandler's, because everybody 
abuses it : but we cannot. It must bear its fate like the 
man. A good deal might be said in behalf of candle- 
light ; but in passing from shop to shop, the variety is so 
great, that the imagination has not time to dwell on any 
one in particular. The ideas they suggest must be obvious 
and on the surface. A grocer's and a tea-dealer's is a good 
thing. It fills the mind instantly with a variety of pleasant 
tastes, as the ladies in Italy on certain holidays pelt the 
gentlemen with sweetmeats. An undertaker's is as great a 
balk to one's spirits, as a loose stone to one's foot. It 
gives one a deadly jerk. But it is pleasant upon the whole 
to see the inhabitant looking carelessly out of doors, or 
hammering while humming a tune ; for why should he die 
a death at every fresh order for a coffin ? An undertaker 
walking merrily drunk by the side of a hearse, is a horrid 
object ; but an undertaker singing and hammering in his 
shop, is only rapping death himself on the knuckles. The 
dead are not there ; the altered fellow-creature is not there ; 



OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS 91 

but only the living man, and the abstract idea of death ; and 
he may defy that as much as he pleases. An apothecary's is 
the more deadly thing of the two ; for the coffin may be 
made for a good old age, but the draught and the drug are 
for the sickly. An apothecary's looks well however at 
night-time, on account of the coloured glasses. It is 
curious to see two or three people talking together in the 
light of one of them, and looking profoundly blue. There 
are two good things in the Italian warehouse, — its name 
and its olives ; but it is chiefly built up of gout. Nothing 
can be got out of a brazier's windows, except by a thief: 
but we understand that it is a good place to live at for those 
who cannot procure water-falls. A music-shop with its 
windows full of title-pages, is provokingly insipid to look at, 
considering the quantity of slumbering enchantment inside, 
which only wants waking. A bookseller's is interesting, 
especially if the books are very old or very new, and have 
frontispieces. But let no author, with or without money in 
his pocket, trust himself in the inside, unless, like the book- 
seller, he has too much at home. An author is like a 
baker ; it is for him to make the sweets, and others to buy 
and enjoy them. And yet not so. Let us not blaspheme 
the " divinity that stirs within us." The old comparison 
of the bee is better ; for even if his toil at last is his 
destruction, and he is killed in order to be plundered, he 
has had the range of nature before he dies. His has been 
the summer air, and the sunshine, and the flowers ; and 
gentle ears have listened to him, and gentle eyes have been 
upon him. Let others eat his honey that please, so that 
he has had his morsel and his song. A bookstall is better 
for an author than a regular shop ; for the books are 
cheaper, the choice often better and more ancient ; and he 
may look at them, and move on without the horrors of not 
buying anything ; unless indeed the master or mistress 
stands looking at him from the shop-door ; which is a vile 



92 OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS 

practice. It is necessary, we suppose, to guard against 
pilferers ; but then ought not a stall-keeper, of any percep- 
tion, to know one of us real magnanimous spoilers of our 
gloves from a sordid thief? A tavern and coffee-house is 
a pleasant sight, from its sociality ; not to mention the illus- 
trious club memories of the times of Shakspeare and the 
Tatlers. We confess that the commonest public-house in 
town is not such an eyesore to us as it is to some. There 
may be a little too much drinking and roaring going on in 
the middle of the week ; but what, in the meantime, are 
pride, and avarice, and all the unsocial vices about ? Before 
we object to public-houses, and above all, to their Saturday 
evening recreations, we must alter the systems that make 
them a necessary comfort to the poor and laborious. Till 
then, in spite of the vulgar part of the polite, we shall have 
an esteem for the " Devil and the Bag o' Nails " ; and 
like to hear, as we go along on Saturday night, the applaud- 
ing knocks on the table that follow the song of " Lovely 
Nan," or " Brave Captain Death," or " Tobacco is an 
Indian Weed," or " Why, Soldiers, why," or " Says 
Plato, why should man be vain," or that judicious and un- 
answerable ditty commencing — 

" Now what can man more desire 
Nor sitting by a sea-coal fire : 
And on his knees, etc." 

We will even refuse to hear anything against a gin-shop, till 
the various systems of the moralists and economists are dis- 
cussed, and the virtuous leave off seduction and old port. 
In the meantime, we give up to anybody's dislike the 
butcher's and fishmonger's. And yet see how things go by 
comparison. We remember, in our boyhood, a lady from 
the West Indies, of a very delicate and high-bred nature, 
who could find nothing about our streets that more excited 
her admiration than the butchers' shops. She had no 



OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS 93 

notion, from what she had seen in her own country, that so 
ugly a business could be carried on with so much neatness, 
and become actually passable. An open potato shop is a 
dull bleak-looking place, except in the height of summer. 
A cheesemonger's is then at its height of annoyance, unless 
you see a paviour or bricklayer coming out with his three 
penn'orth on his bread — a better sight than the glutton's 
waddling away from the fishmonger's. A poulterer's is a 
dead-bodied business, with its birds and their lax necks. 
We dislike to see a bird anywhere but in the open air, alive 
and quick. Of all creatures, restraint and death become its 
winged vivacity the least. For the same reason we hate 
aviaries. Dog-shops are tolerable. A cook-shop does 
not mingle the agreeable with the useful. We hate its 
panes, with Ham and Beef scratched upon them in white 
letters. An ivory-turner's is pleasant, with its red and 
white chessmen, and little big-headed Indians on elephants ; 
so is a toy-shop, with its endless delights for children. A 
coach-maker's is not disagreeable, if you can see the 
painting and panels. An umbrella-shop only reminds one 
of a rainy day, unless it is a shop for sticks also, which 
as we have already shown are meritorious articles. The 
curiosity-shop is sometimes very amusing, with its man- 
darins, stuffed birds, odd old carved faces, and a variety of 
things as indescribable as bits of dreams. The greengrocer 
carries his recommendation in his epithet. The hairdressers 
are also interesting as far as their hair goes, but not as their 
heads — we mean the heads in their windows. One of the 
shops we like least is an angling repository, with its rod for 
a sign, and a fish dancing in the agonies of death at the end 
of it. We really cannot see what equanimity there is in"" 
jerking a lacerated carp out of water by the jaws, merely 
because it has not the power of making a noise ; for we 
presume that the most philosophic of anglers would hardly 
delight in catching shrieking fish. An optician's is not 



94 OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS 

very amusing, unless it has those reflecting-glasses in which 
you see your face run off on each side into attenuated 
width, or upwards and downwards in the same manner, in 
dreary longitude. A saddler's is good, because it reminds 
one of horses. A Christian swordmaker's or gunmaker's 
is edifying. A glass-shop is a beautiful spectacle ; it 
reminds one of the splendours of a fairy palace. We like a 
blacksmith's for the sturdy looks and thumpings of the men, 
the swarthy colour, the fiery sparkles and the thunder- 
breathing throat of the furnace. Of other houses of traffic, 
not common in the streets, there is something striking to us 
in the large, well-conditioned horses of the brewers, and 
the rich smoke rolling from out their chimneys. We also 
greatly admire a wharf, with its boats, barrels, and packages, 
and the fresh air from the water, not to mention the smell 
of pitch. It carries us at once a hundred miles over the 
water. For similar reasons the crabbedest old lane has its 
merits in our eyes, if there is a sail-maker's in it or a boat- 
builder's and water at the end. How used old Roberts of 
Lambeth to gratify the aspiring modesty of our school- 
coats, when he welcomed us down to his wherries and cap- 
tains on a holiday, and said, " Blue against Black at any 
time," meaning the Westminster boys ! And the colleges 
will ratify his praise, taking into consideration the difference 
of the numbers that go there from either cloisters. But of 
all shops in the streets a print-seller's pleases us the most. 
We would rather pay a shilling to Mr Colnaghi, Mr 
Molteno, or Messieurs Moon and Boys, to look at their 
windows on one of their best-furnished days, than we would 
for many on exhibition. We can see fine engravings there, 
translations from Raphael and Titian, which are newer than 
hundreds of originals. We do not despise a pastry-cook's, 
though we would rather not eat tarts and puffs before the 
half-averted face of the prettiest of accountants, especially 
with a beggar watching and praying all the while at the 



OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS 



95 



door. We need not expatiate on the beauties of a florist's, 
where you see unwithering leaves, and roses made immortal. 
A dress warehouse is sometimes really worth stopping at, 
for its flowered draperies and richly-coloured shawls. But 
one's pleasure is apt to be disturbed (ye powers of gallantry ! 
bear witness to the unwilling pen that writes it) by the fair 
faces that come forth, and the half-polite, half-execrating 
expression of the tradesman that bows them out ; for here 
takes place the chief enjoyment of the mystery yclept shop- 
ping ; and here, while some ladies give the smallest trouble 
unwillingly, others have an infinity of things turned over, 
for the mere purpose of wasting their own time and the 
shopman's. We have read of a choice of a wife by cheese. 
It is difficult to speak of preference in such matters, and all 
such single modes of trial must be something equivocal ; 
but we must say, that of all modes of the kind, we should 
desire no better way of seeing what ladies we admired most, 
and whom least, than by witnessing this trial of them at a 
linen-draper's counter. 




V^l^USr- 



A NEARER VIEW 
OF SOME OF THE SHOPS 

In the general glance that we have taken at shops, we found 
ourselves unwillingly compelled to pass some of them too 
quickly. It is the object therefore of the present article to 
enter into those more attractive thresholds, and look a little 
about us. We imagine a fine day ; time, about noon ; 
scene, any good brilliant street. The ladies are abroad in 
white and green ; the beaux lounging, conscious of their 
waists and neckcloths ; the busy pushing onward, conscious 
of their bills ; the dogs and coaches — but we must reserve 
this out-of-door view of the streets for a separate article. 

To begin then, where our shopping experience began, 
with the toy-shop — 

" Visions of glory, spare our aching sight ! 

Ye just-breeched ages, crowd not on our soul ! " 

We still seem to have a lively sense of the smell of that 
gorgeous red paint, which was on the handle of our first 
wooden sword ! The pewter guard also — how beautifully 
fretted and like silver did it look ! How did we hang it 
round our shoulder by the proud belt of an old ribbon ; — 
then feel it well suspended ; then draw it out of the sheath, 
eager to cut down four savage men for ill-using ditto of 
damsels ! An old muff made an excellent grenadier's cap ; 
or one's hat and feather, with the assistance of three 
surreptitious large pins, became fiercely modern and military. 
There it is, in that corner of the window the same identi- 
cal sword, to all appearance, which kept us awake the first 
9 6 



NEARER VIEW OF THE SHOPS 97 

night behind our pillow. We still feel ourselves little boys, 
while standing in this shop ; and for that matter, so we do 
on other occasions. A field has as much merit in our eyes, 
and gingerbread almost as much in our mouths, as at 
that daisy-plucking and cake-eating period of life. There 
is the trigger-rattling gun, fine of its kind, but not 
so complete a thing as the sword. Its memories are not 
so ancient : for Alexander or St George did not fight 
with a musket. Neither is it so true a thing ; it is not 
" like life." The trigger is too much like that of a cross- 
bow ; and the pea which it shoots, however hard, produces 
even to the imaginative faculties of boyhood a humiliating 
flash of the mock-heroic. It is difficult to fancy a dragon 
killed with a pea ; but the shape and appurtenances of the 
sword being genuine, the whole sentiment of massacre is as 
much in its wooden blade, as if it were steel of Damascus. 
The drum is still more real, though not so heroic. In the 
corner opposite are battle-doors and shuttle-cocks, which 
have their maturer beauties ; balls, which possess the addi- 
tional zest of the danger of breaking people's windows ; 
ropes, good for swinging and skipping, especially the long 
ones which others turn for you, while you run in a masterly 
manner up and down, or skip in one spot with an easy and 
endless exactitude of toe, looking alternately at their 
conscious faces ; blood-allies, with which the possessor of a 
crisp finger and thumb-knuckle causes the smitten marbles to 
vanish out of the ring ; kites, which must appear to more 
vital birds a ghastly kind of fowl, with their grim long white 
faces, no bodies, and endless tails ; — cricket bats, manly 
to handle ; — trap bats, a genteel inferiority ; — swimming 
corks, despicable ; — horses on wheels, an imposition on the 
infant public ; — rocking-horses, too much like Pegasus, 
ardent, yet never getting on ; — Dutch toys, so like life that 
they ought to be better ; — Jacob's ladders, flapping down 
one over another their tintinnabulary shutters ; — dissected 

G 



98 NEARER VIEW OF THE SHOPS 




aunt 



maps, from which the infant statesmen may learn how to 
dovetail provinces and kingdoms ; — paper posture-makers, 
who hitch up their knees against their shoulder-blades, and 
dangle their legs like an opera dancer; — Lilliputian plates, 
dishes, and other household utensils, in which a grand 
dinner is served up out of half an apple ; — boxes of paints, to 
colour engravings with, always beyond the outline ; — ditto of 
bricks, a very sensible and lasting toy, which we except 
from a grudge we have against the gravity of infant 
geometricks ; — whips, very useful for cutting people's eyes 
unawares ; — hoops, one of the most ancient as well as 
excellent of toys ; — sheets of pictures, from A apple-pie up 
to farming, military, and zoological exhibitions, always 
taking care that the Fly is as large as the Elephant, and 
the letter X exclusively appropriated to Xerxes ; — musical 



NEARER VIEW OF THE SHOPS 99 

deal-boxes, rather complaining than sweet, and more like a 
peal of bodkins than bells ; — penny trumpets, awful at 
Bartlemy-tide ; — Jew's harps, that thrill and breathe between 
the lips like a metal tongue ; — carts — carriages — hobby- 
horses, upon which the infant equestrian prances about 
proudly on his own feet ; — in short, not to go through the 
whole representative body of existence — dolls, which are so 
dear to the maternal instincts of little girls. We protest, 
however, against that abuse of them, which makes them 
full-dressed young ladies in body, while they remain infant 
in face ; especially when they are of frail wax. It is 
cultivating finery instead of affection. We prefer good 
honest plump limbs of cotton and sawdust, dressed in baby- 
linen, or even our ancient young friends, with their staring 
dotted eyes ; red varnished faces, triangular noses, and 
Rosinante wooden limbs — not, it must be confessed, ex- 
cessively shapely or feminine, but the reverse of fragile 
beauty, and prepared against all disasters. 

The next step is to the Pastry-cook's, where the plain 
bun is still the pleasantest thing in our eyes, from its 
respectability in those of childhood. The pastry, less 
patronised by judicious mothers, is only so much elegant in- 
digestion : yet it is not easy to forget the pleasure of nibbling 
away the crust all round a raspberry or currant tart, in order 
to enjoy the three or four delicious semi-circular bites at 
the fruity plenitude remaining. There is a custard with 
a wall of paste round it, which provokes a siege of this 
kind ; and the cheese-cake has its amenities of approach. 
The acid flavour is a relief to the mawkishness of the biffin 
or pressed baked apple, and an addition to the glib and 
quivering lightness of the jelly. Twelfth Cake, which 
when cut looks like the side of a rich pit of earth covered 
with snow, is pleasant from warmer associations. Confec- 
tionary does not seem in the same request as of old ; its 
paint has hurt its reputation. Yet the school-boy has still 



L.ofC. 



ioo NEARER VIEW OF THE SHOPS 

much to say for its humbler suavities. Kisses are very 
amiable and allegorical. Eight or ten of them, judiciously 
wrapped up in pieces of letter-paper, have saved many a 
loving heart the trouble of a less eloquent billet-doux. 
Candid citron we look upon to be the very acme and 
atticism of confectionary grace. Preserves are too much of 
a good thing, with the exception of the jams that retain 
their fruit-skins. " Jam satis." They qualify the cloying. 
Yet marmalade must not be passed over in these times, when 
it has been raised to the dignity of the peerage. The other 
day there was a Duke of Marmalade in Hayti and a Count 
of Lemonade — so called, from places in which those eminent 
relishes are manufactured. After all, we must own that 
there is but one thing for which we care much at a pastry- 
cook's, except our old acquaintance the bun ; especially as 
we can take up that, and go on. It is an ice. Fancy a 
very hot day ; the blinds down, the loungers unusually 
languid ; the pavement burning one's feet ; the sun, with a 
strong outline in the street, baking one whole side of it like 
a brick-kiln ; so that everybody is crowding on the other, 
except a man going to intercept a creditor bound for the 
Continent. Then think of a heaped-up ice, brought upon a 
salver with a spoon. What statesman, of any warmth of 
imagination, would not pardon the Neapolitans in summer, 
for an insurrection on account of the want of ice ? Think 
of the first sidelong dip of the spoon in it, bringing away a 
well-sliced lump ; then of the sweet wintry refreshment, 
that goes lengthening down one's throat ; and lastly, of the 
sense of power and satisfaction resulting from having bad 
the ice. 

" Not heaven itself can do away that slice; 
But what has been, has been ; and I have had my ice." 

We unaccountably omitted two excellent shops last week, 
— the fruiterer's and the sculptor's. There is great beauty as 
well as agreeableness in a well-disposed fruiterer's window. 



NEARER VIEW OF THE SHOPS 101 

Here are the round piled-up oranges, deepening almost into 
red, and heavy with juice ; the apple with its brown-red 
cheek, as if it had slept in the sun ; the pear, swelling 
downwards ; thronging grapes, like so many tight little bags 
of wine ; the peach, whose handsome leathern coat strips 
off so finely ; the pearly or ruby -like currants, heaped in 
light long baskets ; the red little mouthful of strawberries ; 
the larger purple ones of plums ; cherries, whose old com- 
parison with lips is better than anything new ; mulberries, 
dark and rich with juice, fit to grow over what Homer 
calls the deep black-watered fountains ; the swelling pomp 
of melons ; the rough inexorable-looking cocoa-nut, milky 
at heart ; the elaborate elegance of walnuts ; the quaint 
cashoo-nut ; almonds, figs, raisins, tamarinds, green leaves, 
— in short, 

"Whatever Earth, all-bearing mother, yields 
In India East or West, or middle shore 
In Pontus or the Punick coast, or where 
Alcinous reigned, fruit of all kinds, in coat 
Rough, or smooth rind, or bearded husk, or shell." 

Milton. 

There is something of more refined service in waiting 
upon a lady in a fruit-shop, than in a pastry-cook's. The 
eating of tarts, as Sir Walter Scott handsomely saith in his 
"Life of Dryden " (who used to enjoy them, it seems, 
in company with "Madam Reeves"), is "no inelegant 
pleasure ; " but there is something still more graceful and 
suitable in the choosing of the natural fruit, with its rosy 
lips and red cheeks. A white hand looks better on a 
basket of plums than in the doubtful touching of syrupy 
and sophisticated pastry. There is less of the kitchen 
about the fair visitor. She is more Pomona-like, native, 
and to the purpose. We help her, as we would a local 
deity. 

" Here be grapes whose lusty blood 
Is the learned poets good, 



io2 NEARER VIEW OF THE SHOPS 

Sweeter yet did never crown 

The head of Bacchus ; — nuts more brown 

Than the squirrels' teeth that crack them ; 

Deign, O fairest fair, to take them. 

For these black ey'd Driope 

Hath often times commanded me, 

With my clasped knee to climb ; 

See how well the lusty time 

Hath deckt their rising cheeks in red, 

Such as on your lips is spread. 

Here be berries for a Queen, 

Some be red, some be green ; 

These are of that luscious meat, 

The great God Pan himself doth eat. 

All these, and what the woods can yield, 

The hanging mountain or the field, 

1 freely offer, and ere long 

Will bring you more, more sweet and strong, 

Till when humbly leave I take, 

Lest the great Pan do awake, 

That sleeping lies in a deep glade, 

Under a broad beech's shade." 

Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess. 

How the poets double every delight for us, with their 
imagination and their music ! 

In the windows of some of the sculptors' shops artificial 
fruit may be seen. It is a better thing to put upon a mantel- 
piece than many articles of greater fashion ; but it gives an 
abominable sensation to one's imaginary teeth. The in- 
cautious epicure who plunges his teeth into " a painted snow- 
ball " in Italy (see Brydone's Tour in Sicily and Malta), 
can hardly receive so jarring a balk to his gums, as the bare 
apprehension of a bite at a stone peach ; but the farther you 
go in a sculptor's shop the better. Many persons are not 
aware that there are show-rooms in these places, which are 
well worth getting a sight of by some small purchase. For 
the best plaster casts the Italian shops, such as Papera's in 
Marylebone Street, Golden Square, and Sarti's in Greek 



NEARER VIEW OF THE SHOPS 103 

Street, are the best. Of all the shop-pleasures that are 
" not inelegant," an hour or two passed in a place of this 
kind is surely one of the most polite. Here are the gods 
and heroes of old, and the more beneficent philosophers, 
ancient and modern. You are looked upon, as you walk 
among them, by the paternal majesty of Jupiter, the force 
and decision of Minerva, the still more arresting gentleness 
of Venus, the budding compactness of Hebe, the breathing 
inspiration of Apollo. Here the Celestial Venus, naked in 
heart and body, ties up her locks, her drapery hanging upon 
her lower limbs. Here the Belvidere Apollo, breathing 
forth his triumphant disdain, follows with an earnest eye the 
shaft that has killed the serpent. Here the Graces, linked 
in an affectionate group, meet you in the naked sincerity of 
their innocence and generosity, their hands "open as day," 
and two advancing for one receding. Here Hercules, like 
the building of a man, looks down from his propping club, 
as if half-disdaining even that repose. There Mercury, 
with his light limbs, seems just to touch the ground, ready 
to give a start with his foot and be off again. Bacchus, 
with his riper cheek and his thicker hanging locks, appears 
to be eyeing one of his nymphs. The Vatican Apollo near 
him, leans upon the stump of a tree, the hand which hangs 
upon it holding a bit of his lyre, the other arm thrown up 
over his head, as if he felt the air upon his body, and heard 
it singing through the strings. In a corner on another 
side, is the Crouching Venus of John of Bologna, shrink- 
ing just before she steps into the bath. The Dancing 
Faun is not far off, with his animal spirits, and the Piping 
Faun, sedater because he possesses an art more accom- 
plished. Among the other divinities, we look up with 
veneration to old Homer's head, resembling an earthly 
Jupiter. Plato beholds us with a bland dignity — a beauty 
unimpairable by years. How different from the brute 
impulse of Mars, the bloated self-will of Nero, or the dull 



io 4 NEARER VIEW OF THE SHOPS 

and literal effeminacy of some of the other emperors ! 
There is a sort of presence in sculpture more than in any 
other representations of art. It is curious to see how 
instinctively people will fall into this sentiment when they 
come into a place with busts and statues in it, however 
common. They hush, as if the images could hear them. 
In our boyhood, some of our most delightful holidays were 
spent in the gallery of the late Mr West, in Newman 
Street. It runs a good way back from the street, crossing 
a small garden, and opening into loftier rooms on the other 
side of it. We remember how the world used to seem shut 
out from us the moment the street door was closed, and we 
began stepping down those long-carpeted aisles of pictures, 
with statues in the angles where they turned. We had 
observed everybody walk down them in this way, like the 
mild possessor of the mansion, and we went so likewise. 
We have walked down with him at night to his painting- 
room, as he went in his white flannel gown, with a lamp in 
his hand, which shot a lustrous twilight upon the pictured 
walls in passing ; and everything looked so quiet and grace- 
ful, that we should have thought it sacrilege to hear a sound 
beyond the light tread of his footsteps. But it was the 
statues that impressed us still more than the pictures. It 
seemed as if Venus and Apollo waited our turning at the 
corners ; and there they were, always the same, placid and 
intuitive, more human and bodily than the paintings, yet too 
divine to be over real. It is to that house with the gallery 
in question, and the little green plot of ground, surrounded 
with an arcade and busts, that we owe the greatest part of 
our love for what is Italian and belongs to the fine arts. 
And if this is a piece of private history, with which the 
readers have little to do, they will excuse it for the sake of 
the greatest of all excuse, which is Love. 



yiCQFZyse -nouses 




Smoking has had its vicissitudes, as well as other fashions. 
In Elizabeth's day, when it first came up, it was a high 
accomplishment: James (who liked it none the better for 
its being of Raleigh's invention) indignantly refused it the 
light of his countenance : in Charles's time it was dashed 
out by the cannon ; lips had no leisure for it under Charles 
the Second : the clubs and the Dutch brought it back again 
with King William : it prevailed more or less during the 
reign of the first two Georges ; grew thin, and died away 
under George the Third ; and has lately reappeared, with 
a flourish of Turkish pipes, and through the milder medium 
of the cigar, under the auspices of his successor. 

The last smoker I recollect among those of the old 
school, was a clergyman. He had seen the best society, 
and was a man of the most polished behaviour. This did 
not hinder him from taking his pipe every evening before 
he went to bed. He sat in his armchair, his back gently 
bending, his knees a little apart, his eyes placidly inclined 
towards the fire : and delighted, in the intervals of puff, to 
recount anecdotes of the Marquis of Rockingham and " my 
Lord North." The end of his recreation was announced 
to those who had gone to bed, by the tapping of the bowl 
of his pipe upon the hob, for the purpose of emptying it of 



106 COFFEE-HOUSES & SMOKING 

its ashes. Ashes to ashes ; head to bed. It is a pity that 
the long day of life cannot always terminate as pleasantly. 
Bacon said that the art of making deathbeds easy was 
among the desiderata of knowledge. Perhaps, for the 
most part, they are easier than the great chancellor im- 
agined ; but, no doubt, the most conscientious ones might 
often be bettered. A virtuous man shall not always take 
his departure as comfortably as a sinner with a livelier state 
of diaphragm. Frenchmen have died, sitting in their chairs, 
full-dressed and powdered. I have a better taste in mor- 
tality than that; but 1 think I could drop off with a decent 
compromise between thought and forgetfulness, sitting with 
my pipe by a fireside, in an old elbow-chair. 

I delight to think of the times when smoking was an 
ornament of literature, a refreshment and repose to the 
studious head ; when Hobbes meditated, and Cowley built 
his castles in those warmer clouds, and Dr Aldrich his 
quadrangles. In smoking, you may think or not think, as you 
please. If the mind is actively employed, the pipe keeps 
it in a state of satisfaction, supplies it with a side luxury, 
a soft ground to work upon. If you wish to be idle, the 
successive puffs take the place of thinking. There is a 
negative activity in it, that fills up the place of real. 
Intruding notions are met with a puff in their teeth, and 
puffed into nothing. Studious men are subject to a work- 
ing and fermenting of thought, when their meditations 
would fain be over : they cannot always cease meditating. 
Bacon was accustomed to take a draught of March beer 
towards bedtime, to settle this asstuary of his mind. I 
wonder he did not take a pipe, as a gentler carrier off of 
that uneasiness. Being a link between thought and no 
thought, one would imagine it would have been a more 
advisable compromise with his state of excitement than 
the dashing Gf one stream upon another in that violent 
manner, and forcing his nerves to behave themselves- 



COFFEE-HOUSES & SMOKING 107 

There are delicate heads, I am aware, that cannot bear 
even a cigar. Smoking, of any sort, makes too sudden an 
appeal to the connection between their sensitive nerves 
and the stomach ; produces what the doctors call predi- 
gestion, and is rebuked with a punishment of the weaker 
part, to wit, the brain. Bacon's might have been such 
in his old age, after all the service it had seen ; but I 
wonder, on that account, that he resorted to the jolly and 
fox-hunting succedaneum of beer. A walk would have 
been better. " After study walk a mile." The object 
is to restore the blood gradually to motion, arrested as it 
has been with many thoughts, and confused when they let 
it go. Now a pipe is a more gradual restorative than a 
draught. As it is a shadowing off between thinking and 
no thinking, so it is a preparer for sleep, and a reconciler 
with want of company. 

But the genius of smoking, being truly philosophical, 
has its love of society too : and then it resorts to a cup. 
Among Mr Stothard's agreeable designs for the Spectator, 
there is one of the club over a table, with their pipes and 
their wine. Captain Sentry is going to light his pipe at 
the candle ; Sir Roger is sitting with his knees apart, like 
the old gentleman I have been describing, in the act of 
preparing his, — perhaps thinking what a pretty tobacco- 
stopper the widow's finger would have made. One longs 
to be among them. As I never pass Covent Garden (and 
I pass it very often) without thinking of all the old 
coffee-houses and the wits, so I can never reflect, with- 
out impatience, that there are no such meetings nowadays, 
and no coffee-room that looks as if it would suit them. 
People confine themselves too much to their pews and 
boxes. In former times there was a more humane open- 
ness of intercourse. Different parties had indeed their 
respective places of resort ; a natural consequence of poli- 
tics, perhaps of letters ; but this prevented ungraceful 



io8 COFFEE-HOUSES & SMOKING 

quarrels. Hostility might get in, but was obliged to 
behave itself. Dryden, who was the object of attack to 
an increasing horde of scribblers, was never insulted in his 
coffee-house. Even the bravos of Lord Rochester, or 
whoever it was that had him waylaid in Rose Alley, did 
not venture to disturb the peace of his symposium. The 
room in which he sat is described as open to all comers, 
and he occupied a prominent part in it. In winter a place 
was sacred for him at the fireside. 

I confess, if I were a wit, I would rather have a room 
to myself and friends. I should like to be public only in 
my books. But this is a taste originating in the times. 
Dryden was a modest man in his intercourse ; and was 
never charged, I believe, among all the accusations of 
vanity brought against him, of being the vainer for frequent- 
ing a coffee-room. Being a lover of wits, I should like 
to see the times alter in this respect, and the great men of 
all parties become visible. But where could they be so? 
Where could the pleasant fellows among our existing 
Whigs and Tories take up one of their respective taber- 
nacles, and make a religion of our going to hear them, 
and aspiring to a pinch out of their snuff-boxes ? I was 
thinking of this, as I passed through Convent Garden the 
other evening. Above all, said I, where could we have 
the whole warmth of the intercourse revived, the Spectator's 
tobacco-pipe and all, especially when it is no longer the 
fashion to drink wine ? It would take a great deal to fetch 
Englishmen again out of their boxes. They do not allow 
smoking in the best coffee-houses ; and where they do, so 
many other things are allowed, that no gentleman would 
remain. Where shall I place my imaginary coterie, and 
fancy myself listening to the Drydens and Addisons of the 
day ? It is the fashion now for your wilder writers in 
magazines to patronise, or pretend to patronise, some house 
of call, or vociferation, the mediocrity of which shall give 



COFFEE-HOUSES & SMOKING 109 

them an air of vigour and defiance in the patronage, and 
prove them men of originality. There is something 
pleasant in this where it is not an affectation of superiority 
to prejudice, arising out of an absolute sense to the con- 
trary, and betraying itself by a tone of bullying. But real 
or not, and with all my regard for those honest houses, 
where the only sophisticate thing is the presence of some of 
their panegyrists, they will not do for the purpose before 
us. Due is my consideration for the " Dog and the Coal- 
hole ; " pungent my sense of the " Cheshire Cheese : " the 
"Hole in the Wall" has a snug appellation; and as for 
Dolly's " Beef-Steak House," great would be my in- 
gratitude, did I forget its hot pewter-plate, new bread, 
floury potatoes, foaming pot of porter, and perfect beef- 
steak. The man that cannot enjoy a beefsteak there, c;in 
enjoy a stomach nowhere. But it is not what I was seek- 
ing the other night. Neither is the " Hummums," nor the 
" Bedford," nor the " Piazza," nor the " Southampton," 
nor the " Salopian." 

During these meditations, I approach my friend 
Gliddon's snuff and tobacco-shop, in King Street. Ay, 
here, said I, is wherewithal to fill the boxes of the Steeles 
and Congreves, and the pipes of the Aldriches and Sir 
Roger de Coverleys. But where is the room in which we 
can fancy them ? Where is the coffee-house to match ? 
Where the union of a certain domestic comfort with 
publicity, — journals of literature as well as news, — a fire 
visible to all, — cups without inebriety, — smoking without 
vulgarity ? On a sudden, I find carriages stopping at the 
door ; I recognise an acquaintance of mine, a member of 
Parliament, who does not easily come out of his way to fill 
a snuff-box : I hear a gentleman inquiring about the coffee- 
room, and " whether Prince Esterhazy is to be turned 
away again by a stress of company." I enter, and ask my 
old acquaintance what miracle he has been about. He 



no COFFEE-HOUSES & SMOKING 

points to a board in his shop, and then takes me through a 
door in the wall into the very room that I was looking for. 
It was rather two rooms thrown into one, and with a fire in 
each ; a divan of ample dimensions runs round it ; lamps of 
ground glass diffuse a soft, yet sufficing light ; the floor is 
carpeted ; two cheerful fires offer double facility of 
approach, a twofold provocation to poke and be self- 
possessed ; around are small mahogany tables, with chairs, 
in addition to the divan ; and in the midst of all, stands a 
large one, profusely covered with the periodical works of 
the day, newspapers, magazines and publications that come 
out in numbers. I sit down, and am initiated with the 
hospitality due to an old friend, in all the amenities of the 
place. A cigar and an excellent cup of coffee are served. 
" But will you have as good coffee at the end of the 
year ? " — " Can you ask me that question, Mr Honeycomb 
— you, who have known me long ? " — " Well, if anybody 
that ever kept a shop can do it, it is you : and I tell you 
what ; — if you do, depend upon it, no success will be like 
yours. Good fortune produces abuse of it ; but the abuse 
is always as impolitic, compared with a genuine policy, as 
cunning is inferior to wisdom. If there were any one shop 
in London, in which the customer for a series of years 
were sure to find one undeviating goodness of article, the 
phenomenon would attract and retain all eyes. And these 
cigars : the boy tells me they are excellent also. Is this 
true? " — " I can tell you one thing they say of them, by 
which you may judge for yourself; they say they are 
smuggled."— " O, ho! " 

" And snatch a grace beyond the reach of law." 

" You know how the law picked my pocket once. Before 
that time, I was so tender of conscience, that when I was 
at Hastings I would not purchase a toy or a pair of gloves 
that was contraband ; whereas now — I will not ask you to 



COFFEE-HOUSES & SMOKING 113 

make me certain whether the articles are smuggled or not — 
say no more — rest your insinuating fame on that. But a 
prettier-tasted cigar — a leaf with a finer tip of flavour in 
it, — pray, how many cigars might a man smoke of an 
evening ? I have a great mind to try. But I must look at 
your publications. By the way, you have no pipes, I see ; 
and I observe no bottles. Have you neither pipes nor 
wine ? " — " No, we are exclusively cigar ; we have coffee, 
sherbet, lemonade — all reasonable Oriental drinks to har- 
monise with our divan, but nothing to disturb the peace of 
it. Thus we secure a certain domestic elegance in-doors, 
and can prevent drunkards from coming in to get drunker. 
A gentleman may come from his dining or drawing-room, 
and still find himself in a manner at home. Besides, a 
cigar is the mildest as well as most fashionable form of 
tobacco-taking ; and as it is no longer the mode to drink 
wine, wine is not sought after." — "That is all very good 
for you ; but for me, who have been casting a wistful eye, 
as I came along, at the old haunts of Sir Roger and his 
friends, I confess it is a drawback on a certain fancy I had, 
when I first came in. However, we must consider what 
Steele and Addison would have liked had they lived now, 
and witnessed the effect of the Spectators of other men. 
It is they that have helped to ruin their own pipes and 
wine, and given us a greater taste for literature and domes- 
ticity ; and I comfort myself with concluding that they 
would have come here, at least after their bottle, to take 
their coffee and look over your papers and magazines. 
There he sits, over the way, — Steele, I mean, — the man 
with the short face ; for I perceive there is wit at that 
table. Opposite him is Addison, in black, looking some- 
thing like a master in chancery. The handsome man, 
always on the giggle, must be Rowe ; and the other one, an 
officer, is Colonel Brett. But who is this tall formal 
personage coming up ? Look at him, — the very man, 

H 



1 1 4 COFFEE-HOUSES & SMOKING 

Ambrose Phillips. Who would think that his muse was a 
little dancer in octosyllables, — a dandier of young ladies of 
quality? " 

Mine host left me alone to complete my initiation. 
Another cup of coffee was brought me, and five several 
publications ; to wit, a newspaper, a twopenny sheet, a 
number to be continued, a magazine, and a review ; for I am 
fond of having too many books at once. I looked over 
these, and then, contented with the power to read them 
further, continued giving bland puffs to my cigar, and 
speculating around me. The conversations were maintained 
in very quiet and gentlemanly tones : now and then was 
heard the sound of a leaf turning over ; sometimes a hem, 
consequential or otherwise ; my own puffs were always 
distinguishable to myself; and at intervals I could discern 
those of others, and hear the social crackling of the fire. 
No noisy altercation here ; no sanded floors or cold feet ; 
no impatient waiting for the newspaper ; while the person 
in possession keeps it the longer because you wait : all is 
warm, easy, quiet, abundant, satisfactory. 

I conclude the principal visitors of the divan to be 
theatre-goers, officers who have learnt to love a cigar on 
service, men of letters, and men of fortune who have a 
taste for letters, and can whirl themselves from their own 
firesides to these. If you are in the City, on business, go 
for a steak to Dolly's ; if midway between City and West 
End, go to the first clean-looking larder you come to ; if 
a man of fashion, and you must dine in your altitudes, go 
to the "Clarendon"; but after any of these, man of 
fashion or not, go if you can, and get your cigar and 
your cup of coffee at Gliddon's. It is finishing with a 
grace and a repose. 

By the way, I spent a pretty afternoon the other day. It 
was a complete thing, one thing excepted : but — she's at 
Paris. I dined, I will not say how early; but took only a 



COFFEE-HOUSES & SMOKING 115 

couple glasses of wine, which will retrieve my character 
on that point. I then made tour of the book-stalls, at 
Covent-Garden ; bought some comedies and a Catullus ; 
went to the theatre, and saw Der Freyschutz and Charles 
the Second ; re-issued from among the perukes, with a 
gallant sense about my head and shoulders, as if I carried 
one myself; went and settled my faculties over a cup of the 
New Monthly at Gliddon's ; got home by eleven (for I 
would not go to a party where she was not) ; and fell to 
sleep at the words " Lulling hope," in a song I am 
writing. 




Writers, we think, might oftener indulge themselves in 
direct picture-making, that is to say, in detached sketches 
of men and things, which should be to manners, what those 
of Theophrastus are to character. 

Painters do not always think it necessary to paint epics, 
or to fill a room with a series of pictures on one subject. 
They deal sometimes in single figures and groups ; and 
often exhibit a profounder feeling in these little concen- 
trations of their art, than in subjects of a more numerous 

116 



ON WASHERWOMEN 117 

description. Their gusto, perhaps, is less likely to be lost, 
on that very account. They are no longer Sultans in a 
seraglio, but lovers with a favourite mistress, retired and 
absorbed. A Madonna of Correggio's, the Bath of Michael 
Angelo, the Standard of Leonardo da Vinci, Titian's 
Mistress, and other single subjects or groups of the great 
masters, are acknowledged to be among their greatest per- 
formances, some of them their greatest of all. 

It is the same with music. Overtures, which are sup- 
posed to make allusion to the whole progress of the story 
they precede, are not always the best productions of the 
master ; still less are choruses, and quintetts, and other 
pieces involving a multiplicity of actors. The overture to 
Mozart's Magic Flute (Zauberflote) is worthy of the title 
of the piece ; it is truly enchanting ; but what are so in- 
tense, in their way, as the duet of the two lovers, Ah Per- 
dona, — or the laughing trio in Cosi Fan Tutte, — or that 
passionate serenade in Don Giovanni, Deh inen'i alia jinestra, 
which breathes the very soul of refined sensuality ! The 
gallant is before you, with his mandolin and his cap and 
feather, taking place of the nightingale for that amorous hour ; 
and you feel that the sounds must inevitably draw his mistress 
to the window. Their intenseness even renders them pathetic ; 
and his heart seems in earnest, because his senses are. 

We do not mean to say, that, in proportion as the work 
is large and the subject numerous, the merit may not be the 
greater if all is good. Raphael's Sacrament is a greater 
work than his Adam and Eve ; but his Transfiguration 
would still have been the finest picture in the world, had 
the second group in the foreground been away ; nay\, the 
latter is supposed, and, we think, with justice, to injure 
its effect. We only say that there are times when the 
numerousness may scatter the individual gusto ; — that the 
greatest possible feeling may be proved without it ; — and, 
above all, returning to our [more immediate subject, that 



u8 ON WASHERWOMEN 

writers, like painters, may sometimes have leisure for ex- 
cellent detached pieces, when they want it for larger pro- 
ductions. Here, then, is an opportunity for them. Let 
them, in their intervals of history, or, if they want time for 
it, give us portraits of humanity. People lament that Sappho 
did not write more : but, at any rate, her two odes are 
worth twenty epics like Tryphiodorus. 

But, in portraits of this kind, writing will also have a 
great advantage ; and may avoid what seems to be an in- 
evitable stumbling-block in paintings of a similar description. 
Between the matter-of-fact works of the Dutch artists, and 
the subtle compositions of Hogarth, there seems to be a 
medium reserved only for the pen. The writer only can 
tell you all he means, — can let you into his whole mind and 
intention. The moral insinuations of the painter are, on the 
one hand, apt to be lost for want of distinctness ; or tempted, 
on the other, by their visible nature, to put on too gross a 
shape. If he leaves his meanings to be imagined, he may 
unfortunately speak to unimaginative spectators, and generally 
does ; if he wishes to explain himself so as not to be mis- 
taken, he will paint a set of comments upon his own incidents 
and characters, rather than let them tell for themselves. 
Hogarth himself, for instance, who never does anything 
without a sentiment or a moral, is too apt to perk them both 
in your face, and to be over-redundant in his combinations. 
His persons, in many instances, seem too much taken away 
from their proper indifference to effect, and to be made too 
much of conscious agents and joint contributors. He 
" o'er-informs his tenements.'' His very goods and chat- 
tels are didactic. He makes a capital remark of a cow's 
horn, and brings up a piece of cannon in aid of a satire on 
vanity. 1 It is the writer only who, without hurting the 

1 See the cannon going off in the turbulent portrait of a General 
Officer, and the cow's head coming just over that of the citizen 
who is walking with his wife. 



ON WASHERWOMEN 119 

most delicate propriety of the representation, can leave no 
doubt of all his intentions, — who can insinuate his object, in 
two or three words, to the dullest conception ; and, in con- 
versing with the most foreign minds, take away all the 
awkwardness of interpretation. What painting gains in 
universality to the eye, it loses by an infinite proportion in 
power of suggestion to the understanding. 

There is something of the sort of sketches we are re- 
commending in Sterne : but Sterne had a general connected 
object before him, of which the parts apparently detached 
were still connecting links : and while he also is apt to 
overdo his subject like Hogarth, is infinitely less various 
and powerful. The greatest master of detached portrait is 
Steele : but his pictures too form a sort of link in a chain. 
Perhaps the completest specimen of what we mean in the 
English language is Shenstone's " School-Mistress," by far 
his best production, and a most natural, quiet, and touching 
old dame. — But what ? Are we leaving out Chaucer ? 
Alas, we thought to be doing something a little original, 
and find it all existing already, and in unrivalled perfec- 
tion, in his portraits of the Canterbury Pilgrims ! We can 
only dilate, and vary upon his principle. 

But we are making a very important preface to what may 
turn out a very trifling subject, and must request the reader 
not to be startled at the homely specimen we are about to 
give him, after all this gravity of recommendation. Not 
that we would apologise for homeliness, as homeliness. 
The beauty of this unlimited power of suggestion in writing 
is, that you may take up the driest and most commonplace 
of all possible subjects, and strike a light out of it to warm 
your intellect and your heart by. The fastidious habits of 
polished life generally incline us to reject, as incapable of 
interesting us, whatever does not present itself in a grace- 
ful shape of its own, and a ready-made suit of ornaments. 
But some of the plainest weeds become beautiful under the 



120 ON WASHERWOMEN 

microscope. It is the benevolent provision of nature, that in 
proportion as you feel the necessity of extracting interest 
from common things, you are enabled to do so ; — and the 
very least that this familiarity with homeliness will do for 
us is to render our artificial delicacy less liable to annoy- 
ance, and to teach us how to grasp the nettles till they 
obey us. 

The reader sees that we are Wordsworthians enough not 
to confine our tastes to the received elegancies of society ; 
and, in one respect, we go farther than Mr Wordsworth, 
for, though as fond, perhaps, of the country as he, we can 
manage to please ourselves in the very thick of cities, and 
even find there as much reason to do justice to Providence, 
as he does in the haunts of sportsmen, and anglers, and all- 
devouring insects. 

To think, for instance, of that laborious and inelegant 
class of the community — Washerwomen, and of all the hot. 
disagreeable dabbling, smoking, splashing, kitcheny, cold- 
dining, anti-company-receiving associations, to which they 
give rise. What can be more annoying to any tasteful lady 
or gentleman, at their first waking in the morning, than when 
that dreadful thump at the door comes, announcing the tub- 
tumbling viragoes, with their brawny arms and brawling 
voices ? We must confess, for our own parts, that our 
taste, in the abstract, is not for washerwomen ; we prefer 
Dryads and Naiads, and the figures that resemble them ; — 

Fair forms, that glance amid the green of woods, 
Or from the waters give their sidelong shapes 
Half swelling. 

Yet we have lain awake sometimes in a street in town, after 
this first confounded rap, and pleased ourselves with imagin- 
ing how equally the pains and enjoyments of this world are 
dealt out, and what a pleasure there is in the mere contem- 
plation of any set of one's fellow- creatures and their 



ON WASHERWOMEN 121 

humours, when our knowledge has acquired humility enough 
to look at them steadily. 

The reader knows the knock which we mean. It comes 
like a lump of lead and instantly wakes the maid, whose 
business it is to get up, though she pretends not to hear it. 
Another knock is inevitable, and it comes, and then another ; 
but still Betty does not stir, or stirs only to put herself in a 
still snugger posture, knowing very well that they must 
knock again. " Now, 'drat that Betty," says one of the 
washerwomen ; " she hears as well as we do, but the deuce 
a bit will she move till we give her another " ; and at the 
word another, down goes the knocker again. " It's very 
odd," says the master of the house, mumbling from under 
the bed-clothes, " that Betty does not get up to let the 
people in ; I've heard that knocker three times." " Oh," 
returns the mistress, " she's as lazy as she's high," — and off 
goes the chamber-bell ; — by which time Molly, who begins to 
lose her sympathy with her fellow-servant in impatience of 
what is going on, gives her one or two conclusive digs in 
the side ; when the other gets up, and rubbing her eyes, and 
mumbling, and hastening and shrugging herself downstairs, 
opens the door with — " Lard, Mrs Watson, I hope you 
haven't been standing here long ? " — " Standing here long, 
Mrs Betty ! Oh, don't tell me ; people might stand 
starving their legs off, before you'd put a finger out of bed." 
— " Oh, don't say so, Mrs Watson ; I'm sure I always 
rises at the first knock ; and there — you'll find everything 
comfortable below, with a nice hock of ham, which I made 
John leave for you." At this the washerwomen leave 
their grumbling, and shufHe downstairs, hoping to see Mrs 
Betty early at breakfast. Here, after warming themselves 
at the copper, taking a mutual pinch of snuff, and getting 
things ready for the wash, they take a snack at the pro- 
mised hock ; for people of this profession have always their 
appetite at hand, and every interval of labour is invariably 



122 ON WASHERWOMEN 

cheered by the prospect of having something at the end of 
it. " Well," says Mrs Watson, finishing the last cut, 
" some people thinks themselves mighty generous for leaving 
one what little they can't eat ; but, howsomever, it's better 
than nothing." " Ah," says Mrs Jones, who is a minor 
genius, " one must take what one can get now-a-days ; but 
Squire Hervey's for my money." " Squire Hervey ! 
rejoins Mrs Watson, " what's that the great what's-his- 
name as lives yonder ? " " Ay," returns Mrs Jones, "him 
as has a niece and nevvy, as they say eats him out of house 
and land " ; and here commences the history of all the last 
week of the whole neighbourhood round, which continues 
amidst the dipping of splashing fists, the rumbling of suds, 
and the creaking of wringings-out, till an hour or two are 
elapsed ; and then for another snack and a pinch of snuff, 
till the resumption of another hour's labour or so brings 
round the time for first breakfast. Then, having had 
nothing to signify since five, they sit down at half-past six 
in the wash-house, to take their own meal before the servants 
meet at the general one. This is the chief moment of 
enjoyment. They have just laboured enough to make the 
tea and bread and butter welcome, are at an interesting 
point of the conversation, (for there they contrive to leave 
off on purpose), and so down they sit, fatigued and happy, 
with their red elbows and white corrugated fingers, to a 
tub turned upside down, and a dish of good Christian 
souchong, fit for a body to drink. 

We could dwell a good deal upon this point of time, but 
shall only admonish the fastidious reader, who thinks he has 
all the taste and means of enjoyment to himself, how he 
looks with scorn upon two persons, who are perhaps at this 
moment the happiest couple of human beings in the street, — 
who have discharged their duty, have earned their enjoy- 
ment, and have health and spirits to relish it to the full. 
A washerwoman's cup of tea may vie with the first drawn 



ON WASHERWOMEN 



123 



cork at a bon-vivant's table, and the complacent opening of 
her snuff-box with that of the most triumphant politician 
over a scheme of partition. We say nothing of the con- 
tinuation of their labours, of the scandal they resume, or the 
complaints they pour forth, when they first set off again in 
the indolence of a satisfied appetite, at the quantity of work 
which the mistress of the house, above all other mistresses, 
is sure to heap upon them. Scandal and complaint, in these 
instances, do not hurt the complacency of our reflections ; they 
are in their proper sphere ; and are nothing but a part, as it 
were, of the day's work, and are so much vent to the 
animal spirits. Even the unpleasant day which the work 
causes upstairs in some houses, — the visitors which it ex- 
cludes, and the leg of mutton which it hinders from roast- 
ing, are only so much enjoyment kept back and contrasted, 
in order to be made keener the rest of the week. Beauty 
itself is indebted to it, and draws from that steaming out- 
house and splashing tub the well-fitting robe that gives out 
its figure, and the snowy cap that contrasts its curls and its 
complexion. In short, whenever we hear a washerwoman 
at her foaming work, or see her plodding towards us with 
her jolly warm face, her mob cap, her black stockings, 
clattering pattens, and tub at arm's length resting on her hip- 
joint, we look upon her as a living lesson to us to make the 
most both of time and comfort, and as a sort of allegorical 
compound of pain and pleasure, a little too much, perhaps, 
in the style of Rubens. 




THE BUTCHER. 

Butchers and Juries — Butler's Defence of the 
English Drama, etc. 

It was observed by us the other day in a journal that 
" butchers are wisely forbidden to be upon juries ; not 
because they are not as good as other men by nature, and 
often as truly kind ; but because the habit of taking away 
the lives of sheep and oxen inures them to the sight of 
blood, and violence, and mortal pangs." 

The Times, in noticing this passage, corrected our 
error. There neither is, nor ever was, it seems, a law for- 
bidding butchers to be upon juries ; though the reverse 
opinion has so prevailed among all classes, that Locke takes 
it for granted in his Treatise on Education, and our own 
124 



THE BUTCHER 125 

authority was the author of Hudibras, a man of very 
exact and universal knowledge. The passage that was in 
our mind is in his Posthumous Works, and is worth 
quoting on other accounts. He is speaking of those 
pedantic and would-be classical critics who judge the poets 
of one nation by those of another. Butler's resistance of 
their pretensions is the more honourable to him, inasmuch 
as the prejudices of his own education, and even the pro- 
pensity of his genuis, lay on the learned and anti-impulsive 
side. But his judgment was thorough-going and candid. — 
The style is of the off-hand careless order, after the fashion 
of the old satires and epistles, though not so rough : — 
" An English poet should be tried by his peers, 

And not by pedants and philosophers, 

Incompetent to judge poetic fury, 

As butchers are forbid to be of a jury , 

Besides the most intolerable wrong 

To try their masters in a foreign tongue, 

By foreign jurymen like Sophocles, 

Or tales 1 falser than Euripides, 

When not an English native dares appear 

To be a witness for the prisoner, — 

When all the laws they use to arraign and try 

The innocent, and wrong'd delinquent by, 

Were made by a foreign lawyer and his pupils, 

To put an end to all poetic scruples ; 

And by the advice of virtuosi Tuscans, 

Determined all the doubts of socks and buskins, — 

1 Tales (Latin) persons chosen to supply the place of men im- 
pannelled upon a jury or inquest, and not appearing when called. 
[We copy this from a very useful and pregnant volume, called 
the Treasury of Knowledge, full ot such heaps of information 
as are looked for in lists and vocabularies, and occupying the very 
margins with proverbs. Mr Disraeli, sen., objects to this last 
overflow of contents, but not, we think, with his usual good 
sense and gratitude, as a lover of books. These proverbial say- 
ings, which are the most universal things in the world, appear 
to us to have a particularly good effect in thus coming in to 
refresh one among the technicalities of knowledge.] 



126 THE BUTCHER 

Gave judgment on all past and future plays, 

As is apparent by Speroni's case, 1 

Which Lope Vega first began to steal. 

And after him the French flou 2 Corneille ; 

And since, our English plagiaries nim 

And steal their far-fetch'd criticisms from him, 

And by an action, falsely laid of trover* 

The lumber for their proper goods recover, 

Enough to furnish all the lewd impeachers 

Of witty Beaumont's poetry and Fletcher's, 

Who for a few misprisions of wit, 

Are charged by those who ten times worse commit, 

And for misjudging some unhappy scenes, 

Are censured for it with more unlucky sense: 

(How happily said ! ) 

When all their worst miscarriages delight 

And please more than the best that pedants write." 

Having been guilty of this involuntary scandal against the 
butchers, we would fain make them amends by saying 
nothing but good of them and their trade ; and truly if we 
find the latter part of the proposition a little difficult, they 
themselves are for the most part a jovial, good-humoured 
race, and can afford the trade to be handled as sharply as 
their beef on the block. There is cut and come again in 
them. Your butcher breathes an atmosphere of good living. 
The beef mingles kindly with his animal nature. He grows 
fat with the best of it, perhaps with inhaling its very essence ; 
and has no time to grow spare, theoretical, and hypochon- 
driacal, like those whose more thinking stomachs drive them 

1 Speroni, a celebrated critic in the days of Tasso. 

2 Filou — pickpocket ! This irreverent epithet must have startled 
many of Butler's readers and brother-loyalists of the court of 
Charles the Second. But he suffered nothing to stand in the way 
of what seemed to him a just opinion. 

3 Trover — an action for goods found and not delivered on 
demand. — Treasury of Knowledge. Butler's wit dragged every 
species of information into his net. 



THE BUTCHER 127 

upon the apparently more innocent but less easy and 
analogous intercommunications of fruit and vegetables. 
For our parts, like all persons who think at all, — nay, 
like the butcher himself, when he catches himself in a 
strange fit of meditation, after some doctor perhaps has 
" kept him low,"— we confess to an abstract dislike of 
eating the sheep and lamb that we see in the meadow ; albeit 
our concrete regard for mutton is considerable, particularly 
Welsh mutton. But Nature has a beautiful way of recon- 
ciling all necessities that are unmalignant ; and as butchers at 
present must exist, and sheep and lambs would not exist at 
all in civilised countries, and crop the sweet grass so long, 
but for the brief pang at the end of it, he is as comfortable 
a fellow as can be, — one of the liveliest ministers of her 
mortal necessities, — of the deaths by which she gives and 
diversifies life ; and has no more notion of doing any harm 
in his vocation, than the lamb that swallows the lady-bird 
on the thyme. A very pretty insect is she, and has had a 
pretty time of it ; a very calm, clear feeling, healthy, and, 
therefore, happy little woollen giant, compared with her, is 
the lamb, — her butcher ; and an equally innocent and festive 
personage is the butcher himself, notwithstanding the popular 
fallacy about juries, and the salutary misgiving his beholders 
feel when they see him going to take the lamb out of the 
meadow, or entering the more tragical doors of the slaughter- 
house. His thoughts, while knocking down the ox, are of 
skill and strength, and not of cruelty. And the death, 
though it may not be the very best of deaths, is, assuredly, 
none of the worst. Animals, that grow old in an artificial 
state, would have a hard time of it in a lingering decay. 
Their mode of life would not have prepared them for it. 
Their blood would not run lively enough to the last. We 
doubt even whether the John Bull of the herd, when about 
to be killed, would change places with a very gouty, irritable 
old gentleman, or be willing to endure a grievous being of 



128 THE BUTCHER 

his own sort, with legs answering to the gout ; much less if 
Cow were to grow old with him, and plague him with end- 
less lowings, occasioned by the loss of her beauty, and the 
increasing insipidity of the hay. A human being who can 
survive those ulterior vaccinations must indeed possess some 
great reliefs of his own, and deserve them, and life may 
reasonably be a wonderfully precious thing in his eyes ; nor 
shall excuse be wanting to the vaccinators, and what made 
them such, especially if they will but grow a little more 
quiet and ruminating. But who would have the death of 
some old, groaning, aching, effeminate, frightened, lingerer 
in life, such as Maecenas for example, compared with a 
good, jolly knock-down blow, at a reasonable period, 
whether of hatchet or of apoplexy, — whether the bull's 
death or the butcher's ? Our own preference, it is true, is 
for neither. We are for an excellent, healthy, happy life, 
of the very best sort ; and a death to match it, going out 
calmly as a summer's evening. Our taste is not particular. 
But we are for the knock-down blow rather than the death- 
in-life. 

The butcher, when young, is famous for his health, 
strength, and vivacity, and for his riding any kind of horse 
down any sort of hill, with a tray before him, the reins for 
a whip, and no hat on his head. It was a gallant of this 
sort that Robin Hood imitated, when he beguiled the poor 
Sheriff into the forest, and showed him his own deer to sell. 
The old ballads apostrophise him well as the " butcher so 
bold," or better — with the accent on the last syllable — 
"thou bold butcher." No syllable of his was to be trifled 
with. The butcher keeps up his health in middle life, not 
only with the food that seems so congenial to flesh, but 
with rising early in the morning, and going to market with 
his own or his master's cart. When more sedentary, and 
very jovial and good-humoured, he is apt to expand into a 
most analogous state of fat and smoothness, with silken 



THE BUTCHER 129 

tones and a short breath, — harbingers, we fear, of asthma 
and gout ; or the kindly apoplexy comes, and treats him as 
he treated the ox. 

When rising in the world, he is indefatigable on Saturday 
nights, walking about in the front of those white-clothed 
and joint-abounding open shops, while the meat is being 
half-cooked beforehand with the gas-lights. The rapidity 
of his " What-d'ye-buy ? " on these occasions is famous ; 
and both he and the good housewives, distracted with the 
choice before them, pronounce the legs of veal " beautiful — 
exceed ingly." 

How he endures the meat against his head, as he carries 
it about on a tray, or how we endure that he should do it, 
or how he can handle the joints as he does with that 
habitual indifference, or with what floods of hot water he 
contrives to purify himself of the exoterical part of his 
philosophy on going to bed, we cannot say ; but take him 
all in all, he is a fine specimen of the triumph of the general 
over the particular. 

The only poet that was the son of a butcher (and the 
trade may be proud of him) is Akenside, who naturally 
resorted to the " Pleasures of Imagination." As to 
Wolsey, we can never quite picture him to ourselves apart 
from the shop. He had the cardinal butcher's-virtue of a 
love of good eating, as his picture shows ; and he was fore- 
man all his life to the butcher Henry the Eighth. We 
beg pardon of the trade for this application of their name : 
and exhort them to cut the cardinal, and stick to the 
poet. 



i 3 o THE MAID-SERVANT 

THE MAID-SERVANT 1 

Must be considered as young, or else she has married the 
butcher, the butler, or her cousin, or has otherwise settled 
into a character distinct from her original one, so as to be- 
come what is properly called the domestic. The Maid- 
Servant, in her apparel, is either slovenly and fine by turns, 
and dirty always ; or she is at all times neat and tight, and 
dressed according to her station. In the latter case, her 
ordinary dress is black stockings, a stuff gown, a cap, and 
a neck-handkerchief pinned cornerwise behind. If you 
want a pin, she feels about her, and has always one to give 
you. On Sundays and holidays, and perhaps of afternoons, 
she changes her black stockings for white, puts on a gown 
of a better texture and fine pattern, sets her cap and her 
curls jauntily, and lays aside the neck-handkerchief for a 
high-body, which, by the way, is not half so pretty. 

The general furniture of her ordinary room, the kitchen, 
is not so much her own as her master's and mistress's, and 
need not be described : but in a drawer of the dresser or the 
table, in company with a duster and a pair of snuffers, may 
be found some of her property, such as a brass thimble, a 
pair of scissors, a thread-case, a piece of wax candle much 
wrinkled with the thread, an odd volume of Pamela, and 
perhaps a sixpenny play, such as George Barnwell or 
Southerne's Oroonoko. There is a piece of looking-glass 
in the window. The rest of her furniture is in the garret, 
where you may find a good looking-glass on the table ; and 
in the window a Bible, a comb and a piece of soap. Here 
stands also, under stout lock and key, the mighty mystery, — 
the box,^containing, among other things, her clothes, two 
or three song-books, consisting of nineteen for the penny ; 
sundry tragedies at a halfpenny the sheet ; the Whole Nature 
1 In some respects, particularly of costume, this portrait must 
be understood of originals existing twenty or thirty years ago. 



THE MAID-SERVANT 131 

of Dreams Laid Open, together with the Fortune-teller and 
the Account of the Ghost of Mrs Veal ; the Story of the 
Beautiful Zoa " who was cast away on a desert island, 
showing how,' , &c. ; some half-crowns in a purse, includ- 
ing pieces of country-money ; a silver penny wrapped up 
in cotton by itself; a crooked sixpence, given her before 
she came to town, and the giver of which has either for- 
gotten or been forgotten by her, she is not sure which ; — 
two little enamel boxes, with looking-glass in the lids, one 
of them a fairing, the other " a Trifle from Margate " ; and 
lastly, various letters, square and ragged, and directed in all 
sorts of spellings, chiefly with little letters for capitals. One 
of them, written by a girl who went to a day-school, is 
directed " Miss." 

In her manners, the Maid-servant sometimes imitates her 
young mistress ; she puts her hair in papers, cultivates a 
shape, and occasionally contrives to be out of spirits. But 
her own character and condition overcome all sophistica- 
tions of this sort ; her shape, fortified by the mop and 
scrubbing-brush, will make its way ; and exercise keeps 
her healthy and cheerful. From the same cause her temper 
is good ; though she gets into little heats when a stranger 
is over saucy, or when she is told not to go so heavily down 
stairs, or when some unthinking person goes up her wet 
stairs with dirty shoes, — or when she is called away often 
from dinner ; neither does she much like to be seen scrub- 
bing the street-door steps of a morning ; and sometimes she 
catches herself saying, " Drat that butcher," but immediately 
adds, " God forgive me." The tradesmen indeed, with 
their compliments and arch looks, seldom give her cause to 
complain. The milkman bespeaks her good-humour for 
the day with "Come, pretty maids": — then follow the 
butcher, the baker, the oilman, &c, all with their several 
smirks and little loiterings ; and when she goes to the shops 
herself, it is for her the grocer pulls down his string from 



i 3 2 THE MAID-SERVANT 

its roller with more than ordinary whirl, and tosses his 
parcel into a tie. 

Thus pass the mornings between working, and singing, 
and giggling, and grumbling, and being flattered. If she 
takes any pleasure unconnected with her office before the 
afternoon, it is when she runs up the area-steps or to the 
door to hear and purchase a new song, or to see a troop of 
soldiers go by ; or when she happens to thrust her head out 
of a chamber window at the same time with a servant at the 
next house, when a dialogue infallibly ensues, stimulated by 
the imaginary obstacles between. If the Maid-servant is 
wise, the best part of her work is done by dinner-time ; and 
nothing else is necessary to give perfect zest to the meal. 
She tells us what she thinks of it, when she calls it " a bit 
o' dinner." There is the same sort of eloquence in her 
other phrase, " a cup o' tea V ; but the old ones, and the 
washerwomen, beat her at that. After tea in great houses, 
she goes with the other servants to hot cockles, or What- 
are-my-thoughts-like, and tells Mr John to " have done 
then " ; or if there is a ball given that night, they throw 
open the doors, and make use of the music up stairs to dance 
by. In smaller houses, she receives the visits of her afore- 
said cousin ; and sits down alone, or with a fellow maid- 
servant, to work ; talks of her young master or mistress and 
Mr Ivins (Evans) ; or else she calls to mind her own friends 
in the country ; where she thinks the cows and "all that" 
beautiful, now she is away. Meanwhile, if she is lazy, she 
snuffs the candle with her scissors ; or if she has eaten more 
heartily than usual, she sighs double the usual number of 
times, and thinks that tender hearts were born to be unhappy. 

Such being the Maid-servant's life in-doors, she scorns, 
when abroad, to be anything but a creature of sheer enjoy- 
ment. The Maid-servant, the sailor, and the school-boy, 
are the three beings that enjoy a holiday beyond all the rest 
of the world ; — and all for the same reason, — because their 




V V\ J ""W»lk.r tKrougk 

a>r\ cj^«3U^y routed, ©Ct-\ov«," 



THE MAID-SERVANT 135 

inexperience, peculiarity of life, and habit of being with 
persons of circumstances or thoughts above them, give them 
all, in their way, a cast of the romantic. The most active 
of the money-getters is a vegetable compared with them. 
The Maid-servant when she first goes to Vauxhall, thinks 
she is in heaven. A theatre is all pleasure to her, whatever 
is going forward, whether the play or the music, or the 
waiting which makes others impatient, or the munching of 
apples and gingerbread, which she and her party commence 
almost as soon as they have seated themselves. She prefers 
tragedy to comedy, because it is grander, and less like what 
she meets with in general ; and because she thinks it more 
in earnest also, especially in the love-scenes. Her favourite 
play is Alexander the Great, or the Rival Queens. Another 
great delight is in going a shopping. She loves to look at 
the patterns in the windows, and the fine things labelled 
with those corpulent numerals of " only 7s. " — " only 
6s. 6d." She has also, unless born and bred in London, 
been to see my Lord Mayor, the fine people coming out of 
Court, and the " beasties " in the Tower ; and at all events 
she has been to Astley's and the Circus, from which she 
comes away, equally smitten with the rider, and sore with 
laughing at the clown. But it is difficult to say what 
pleasure she enjoys most. One of the completest of all is 
the fair, where she walks through an endless round of noise, 
and toys, and gallant apprentices, and wonders. Here she 
is invited in by courteous and well-dressed people, as if she 
were the mistress. Here also is the conjuror's booth, where 
the operator himself, a most stately and genteel person all 
in white, calls her Ma'am ; and says to John by her side, 
in spite of his laced hat, •' Be good enough, sir, to hand the 
card to the lady." 

Ah ! may her " cousin " turn out as true as he says he 
is ; or may she get home soon enough and smiling enough 
to be as happy again next time. 




FINE DAY5 IN JANUARY AND 
FEBRUARY 

We speak of those days, unexpected, sunshiny, cheerful, 
even vernal, which come towards the end of January, and 
are too apt to come alone. They are often set in the midst 
of a series of rainy ones, like a patch of blue in the sky. 
Fine weather is much at any time, after or before the end 
of the year ; but, in the latter case, the days are still winter 
days ; whereas, in the former, the year being turned, and 
March and April before us, we seem to feel the coming of 
spring. In the streets and squares, the ladies are abroad with 
their colours and glowing cheeks. If you can hear anything 
but noise, you hear the sparrows. People anticipate at 
breakfast the pleasure they shall have in "getting out." 
The solitary poplar in a corner looks green against the sky ; 
and the brick wall has a warmth in it. Then in the noisier 
streets, what a multitude and a new life ! What horseback ! 
136 



FINE DAYS 137 

What promenading ! What shopping and giving good 
day ! Bonnets encounter bonnets ; all the Miss Williamses 
meet all the Miss Joneses ; and everybody wonders, particu- 
larly at nothing. The shop-windows, putting forward their 
best, may be said to be in blossom. The yellow carriages 
flash in the sunshine ; footmen rejoice in their white calves, 
not dabbed, as usual, with rain ; the gossips look out of their 
three-pairs-of-stairs windows ; other windows are thrown 
open ; fruiterers' shops look well, swelling with full 
baskets ; pavements are found to be dry ; lap-dogs frisk 
under their asthmas ; and old gentlemen issue forth, peering 
up at the region of the north-east. 

Then in the country, how emerald the green, how open- 
looking the prospect ! Honeysuckles (a name alone with 
a garden in it) are detected in blossom ; the hazel follows ; 
the snowdrop hangs its white perfection, exquisite with 
green ; we fancy the trees are already thicker ; voices of 
winter birds are taken for new ones ; and in February the 
new ones come — the thrush, the chaffinch, and the wood- 
lark. Then rooks begin to pair ; and the wagtail dances in 
the lane. As we write this article, the sun is on our paper, 
and chanticleer (the same, we trust, that we heard the 
other day) seems to crow in a very different style, lord of 
the ascendant, and as willing to be with his wives abroad 
as at home. We think we see him, as in Chaucer's 
homestead : 

He looketh, as it were, a grim leoun ; 
And on his toes he roameth up and down ; 
Him deigneth not to set his foot to ground ; 
He clucketh when he hath a corn yfound, 
And to him runnen then his wives all. 

Will the reader have the rest of the picture, as Chaucer 
gave it? It is as bright and strong as the day itself, and as 
suited to it as a falcon to a knight's fist. Hear how the 
old poet throws forth his strenuous music ; as fine, con- 



138 FINE DAYS 

sidered as mere music and versification, as the description 
is pleasant and noble. 

His comb was redder than the fine corall, 
Embattled as it were a castle wall ; 
His bill was black, and as the jet it shone ; 
Like azure was his legges and his tone ; 
His nailes whiter than the lilly flower, 
And like the burned gold was his colour. 

Hardly one pause like the other throughout, and yet all 
flowing and sweet. The pause on the third syllable in the 
last line but one, and that on the sixth in the last, together 
with the deep variety of vowels, make a beautiful conclud- 
ing couplet ; and indeed the whole is a study for versifica- 
tion. So little were those old poets unaware of their task, 
as some are apt to suppose them ; and so little have others 
dreamt, that they surpassed them in their own pre- 
tensions. The accent, it is to be observed, in those 
concluding words, as coral and colour, is to be thrown on 
the last syllable, as it is in Italian. Color, colore, and 
Chaucer's old Anglo-Gallican word, is a much nobler one 
than our modern one colour. We have injured many such 
words, by throwing back the accent. 

We should beg pardon for this digression, if it had not 
been part of our understood agreement with the reader to 
be as desultory as we please, and as befits Companions. 
Our very enjoyment of the day we are describing would 
not let us be otherwise. It is also an old fancy of ours to 
associate the ideas of Chaucer with that of any early and 
vigorous manifestation of light and pleasure. He is not 
only the " morning star" of our poetry, as Denham called 
him, but the morning itself, and a good bit of the noon ; 
and we could as soon help quoting him at the beginning of 
the year, as we could help wishing to hear the cry of 
primroses, and thinking of the sweet faces that buy them. 




BAD ^^E^VTHER 



After longing these two months for some " real winter 
weather," the public have had a good sharp specimen, a 
little too real. We mean to take our revenge by writing 
an article upon it after a good breakfast, with our feet at a 
good fire, and in a room quiet enough to let us hear the fire 
as well as feel it. Outside the casement (for we are writ- 
ing this in a cottage) the east- wind is heard, cutting away 
like a knife ; snow is on the ground ; there is frost and 
sleet at once ; and the melancholy crow of poor chanticleer 
at a distance seems complaining that nobody will cherish 
him. One imagines that his toes must be cold ; and that he 
is drawing comparisons between the present feeling of his 
sides, and the warmth they enjoy next his plump wife on a 
perch. 

But in the country there is always something to enjoy. 
There is the silence, if nothing else ; you feel that the air is 

139 



i 4 o BAD WEATHER 

healthy ; and you can see to write. Think of a street in 
London, at once narrow, foggy, and noisy ; the snow 
thawing, not because the frost has not returned, but because 
the union of mud and smoke prevails against it ; and then 
the unnatural cold sound of the clank of milk-pails (if you 
are up early enough) ; or, if you are not, the chill, damp, 
strawy, rickety hackney-coaches going by, with fellows 
inside of them with cold feet, and the coachman a mere 
bundle of rags, blue nose, and jolting. (He'll quarrel with 
every fare, and the passenger knows it, and will resist. So 
they will stand with their feet in" the mud, haggling. The 
old gentleman saw an extra charge of a shilling in his face. ) 
To complete the misery, the pedestrians kick, as they go, 
those detestable flakes of united snow and mud, — at least 
they ought to do so, to complete our picture ; and at night- 
time, people coming home hardly know whether or not they 
have chins. 

But is there no comfort then in a London street in such 
weather ? Infinite, if people will but have it, and families 
are good-tempered. We trust we shall be read by 
hundreds of such this morning. Of some we are certain ; 
and do hereby, agreeably to our ubiquitous privileges, take 
several breakfasts at once. How pleasant is this rug ! 
How bright and generous the fire ! How charming the 
fair makers of the tea ! And how happy that they have 
not to make it themselves, the drinkers of it ! Even the 
hackney-coachman means to get double as much as usual 
to-day, either by cheating or being pathetic ; and the old 
gentleman is resolved to make amends for the necessity of 
his morning drive, by another pint of wine at dinner, and 
crumpets with his tea. It is not by grumbling against the 
elements, that evil is to be done away ; but by keeping 
one's-self in good heart with one's fellow-creatures, and 
remembering that they are all capable of partaking our 
pleasures. The contemplation of pain, acting upon a 



BAD WEATHER 141 

splenetic temperament, produces a stirring reformer here 
and there, who does good rather out of spite against wrong, 
than sympathy with pleasure, and becomes a sort of dis- 
agreeable angel. Far be it from us, in the present state of 
society, to wish that no such existed ! But they will 
pardon us for labouring in the vocation, to which a livelier 
nature calls us, and drawing a distinction between the dis- 
satisfaction that ends in good, and the mere common-place 
grumbling that in a thousand instances to one ends in noth- 
ing but plaguing everybody as well as the grumbler. In 
almost all cases, those who are in a state of pain themselves, 
are in the fairest way for giving it ; whereas, pleasure is in 
its nature social. The very abuses of it (terrible as they 
sometimes are) cannot do as much harm as the violations 
of the common sense of good-humour ; simply because it 
is its nature to go with, and not counter to humanity. The 
only point to take care of is, that as many innocent sources 
of pleasure are kept open as possible, and affection and 
imagination brought in to show us what they are, and how 
surely all may partake of them. We are not likely to 
forget that a human being is of importance, when v/e can 
discern the merits of so small a thing as a leaf, or a honey- 
bee, or the beauty of a flake of snow, or the fanciful scenery 
made by the glowing coals in a fire-place. Professors of 
sciences may do this. Writers of the most enthusiastic in a 
good cause, may sometimes lose sight of their duties, by 
reason of the very absorption in their enthusiasm. Imagina- 
tion itself cannot always be abroad and at home at the same 
time. But the many are not likely to think too deeply of 
anything ; and the more pleasures that are taught them by 
dint of an agreeable exercise of their reflection, the more 
they will learn to reflect on all round them, and to endeavour 
that their reflections may have a right to be agreeable. 
Any increase of the sum of our enjoyments almost invariably 
produces a wish to communicate them. An over-indulged 



1 42 BAD WEATHER 

human being is ruined by being taught to think of nobody 
but himself; but a human being, at once gratified and made 
to think of others, learns to add to his very pleasures in the 
act of diminishing them. 

But how, it may be said, are we to enjoy ourselves with 
reflection, when our very reflection will teach us the quantity 
of suffering that exists ? How are we to be happy with 
breakfasting and warming our hands, when so many of our 
fellow-creatures are, at that instant, cold and hungry ? — It 
is no paradox to answer, that the fact of our remembering 
them, gives us a right to forget them : — we mean, that 
"there is a time for all things," and that having done our 
duty at other times in sympathising with pain, we have not 
only a right, but it becomes our duty, to show the happy 
privileges of virtue by sympathising with pleasure. The 
best person in a holiday-making party is bound to have the 
liveliest face ; or if not that, a face too happy even to be 
lively. Suppose, in order to complete the beauty of it, 
that the face is a lady's. She is bound, if any uneasy 
reflection crosses her mind, to say to herself, " To this 
happiness I have contributed ; — pain I have helped to 
diminish ; I am sincere, and wish well to everybody ; and 
I think everybody would be as good as I am, perhaps 
better, if society were wise. Now society, I trust, is get- 
ting wiser ; perhaps will beat all our wisdom a hundred 
years hence : and meanwhile, I must not show that good- 
ness is of no use, but let it realise all it can, and be as 
merry as the youngest." So saying, she gives her hand to 
a friend for a new dance, and really forgets what she has 
been thinking of, in the blithe spinning of her blood. 
A good-hearted woman, in the rosy beauty of her joy, 

is the loveliest object in . But everybody knows 

that. 

Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiment s f has 
rebuked Thomson for his famous apostrophe in Winter to 



BAD WEATHER 143 

the "gay, licentious proud;" where he says, that amidst 
their dances and festivities they little think of the misery 
that is going on in the world : — because, observes the 
philosopher, upon this principle there never could be any 
enjoyment in the world, unless every corner of it were 
happy ; which would be preposterous. We need not say 
how entirely we agree with the philosopher in the abstract : 
and certainly the poet would deserve the rebuke, had he 
addressed himself only to the " gay ; " but then his gay 
are also "licentious/' and not only licentious but "proud." 
Now we confess we would not be too squeamish even about 
the thoughtlessness of these gentry, for is not their very 
thoughtlessness their excuse? And are they not brought 
up in it, just as a boy in St Giles's is brought up in thievery, 
or a girl to callousness and prostitution ? It is not the 
thoughtless in high life from whom we are to expect any 
good, lecture them as we may : and observe — Thomson 
himself does not say how cruel they are ; or what a set 
of rascals to dance and be merry in spite of their better 
knowledge. He says, 

" Ah little think the gay, licentious proud " — 

and so they do. And so they will, till the diffusion of 
thought, among all classes, flows, of necessity, into their 
gay rooms and startled elevations ; and forces them to look 
out upon the world, that they may not be lost by being 
under the level. 

We had intended a very merry paper this week, to be- 
speak the favour of our new readers : — 

" ' A very merry, dancing, drinking, 

Laughing, quaffing, and unthinking' paper" — 

as Dryden has it. But the Christmas holidays are past ; 
and it is their termination, we suppose, that has made us 



1 44 BAD WEATHER 



serious. 



Sitting up at night also is a great inducer of your 
moral remark ; and if we are not so pleasant as we intended 
to be, it is because some friends of ours, the other night, 
were the pleasantest people in the world till five in the 
morning. 




RAINYD^VY POETRY 

. Dicessit ab astris 
Humor, et ima petit. — Lucan. 

Humour sets the welkin free, 

And condescends with you and me. 

Critics lament over a number of idle rhymes in the works 
of Swift, that may come under the above title ; and wish, at 
least, that they had never been published. They designate 
them as the sweepings of his study, his private weaknesses, 
unworthy of so great a genius, and exclaim against his 
friends for collecting them. I really cannot see the 
humiliation. If he had written nothing else, there might be 
some colour of accusation against him ; though I do not see 
why a dean is bound to be a dull private gentleman. But 
if he had written nothing else, I think it may be pretty 



146 RAINY-DAY POETRY 

safely pronounced that he would not have written these 
trifles. They bear the mark of a great hand, trifling as 
they are. Their extravagance is that of power, not of 
weakness ; and the wilder Irish waggery of Dr Sheridan, 
slatternly and muddled, stands rebuked before them. What 
should we have done had we lost Mary the Cook-maid's 
Letter, and the Grand Question about the Barracks ? 
These, to be sure, are excepted by everybody ; but 1 like, 
for my part, to hear all that such an exquisite wag has to say. 
I except the coarseness of two or three pieces, which I 
never read. I wish the critics could say as much. I have 
such a disgust of this kind of writing that there are poems, 
even in Chaucer, which I never look at. But this does not 
hinder me from loving all the rest. Perhaps I carry my 
dislike of what I allude to too far. It is possible that it 
may not be without its use in certain stages of society. But 
so it is, and I mention it, that I may not be thought to be 
confounding or recommending two different things. 

It is our own fault if we take this Rainy-Day Poetry for 
more than the author intended it. It is our loss if we do 
not take it for as much. I give it this title, because we may 
suppose it written to while away the tedium of rainy days, 
or of the feelings that resemble it. There is also Rainy- 
Day Prose, of a great deal of which my own writings are 
composed, though I was hardly aware of it at the time. 
I relish all that Swift has favoured us with, of either kind. 
The only approach that we minor humorists can make to 
such men, is to show that we understand them in all their 
moods, — that nothing is lost on us. The greatest fit of 
laughter I ever remember to have had, was in reading the 
Commination piece against William Wood, in which all his 
enemies are introduced execrating him in puns. The zest 
was heightened by the presence of a deaf old lady, who had 
desired a friend of mine and myself to take a book, while 
waiting to see a kinsman of hers. Her imperturbable face, 



RAINY-DAY POETRY 147 

the shocking things we said before her, and even the dread 
of being thought rude, produced a sort of double drama in 
our minds, extreme and irresistible. 

A periodical writer derives the same privileges from 
necessity which other men do from wit. The rainy days 
here in Italy are very rare compared with those of England ; 
but the damps which the latter produce within us sometimes 
make their appearance when we are away ; and a . . . In 
short, it is not necessary to inform the reader that periodical 
writers produce a great deal of rainy-day poetry, voluntary 
or involuntary. If he excuses it, all is well. I shall, 
therefore, whenever I am inclined, make use of this title to 
pass off rhymes that I have more pleasure in writing than 
in publishing. The other day I was moved to vent my 
pluviose indignation on the subject of Ferdinand, King of 
Spain, a personage who has had the extraordinary fortune 
(even for a prince) to become the spectacle of the whole 
world, precisely because he is destitute of every quality 
which deserves their notice. That my poem might be as 
small as my subject, I wrote it in Lilliputian lines and 
miniature cantos ; but in consequence of the variety of feel- 
ings that pressed upon me as I proceeded, three out of the 
four became neither one thing nor t'other, and are not worth 
indulgence. The exordium I lay before the reader, because 
it contains an anecdote of his majesty's first appearance on 
the stage, with which he may not be acquainted. I had it 
from a Spanish gentleman now in England. 

I sing the least of things, — 
To wit, the least of kings. 

Imprimis, when the nation 

First raised him to his station, 

And blest him as he rid 

In triumph to Madrid, 

A gentleman who saw him 

(And hugely longed to claw him) 



148 RAINY-DAY POETRY 

Said, that he never showed 
One feeling on the road, 
But sat in stupid pride, 
Staring on either side, 
Letting his hand be kissed 
(I think I see the fist). 
As if, where'er they took it, 
They meant to pick his pocket ; 
And goggling like an owl, — 
The hideous beaky fool ! 

The last line is emphatic ! I had not patience to con- 
tinue in a proper style of burlesque. Ferdinand has 
astonished even those who were never astonished at kings 
before. And yet what was to be expected from this por- 
tentious specimen of royalty, — royalty, naked, instinctive, 
unmitigated, unadorned ? W-hat examples he had before 
him ! What an education ! What contempt of decencies, 
public and private ! What a mother, what a minister, what 
a father ! The same gentleman who related to me the 
above anecdote told me that he had seen the old king dining 
in public, and that the spectacle was disgusting beyond 
description. Such brutal feeding, such pawing and grind- 
ing, such absorption in the immediate appetite and will, and 
contempt of everything else in the world, could only be 
exhibited by one who was accustomed to set up the mere 
consciousness of royalty as superior to every other considera- 
tion. This is Ferdinand's principle. He has no other, 
nor ever had, even when he petitioned to be made a member 
of Bonaparte's family. Bonaparte dazzled him, like some- 
thing supernatural, and was an emperor to boot ; but if 
he had not been one, it would have made no difference. 
The royal will, the immediate security, interest, or even 
whim, sanctions everything ; and royalty is to come out 
clear from the furnace upon the strength of its divine right, 
let it have gone through what it may. How much right 
have we to complain of it, flattering it as we do, even in 



RAINY-DAY POETRY 149 

the best regulated monarchies ? The frog in the fable 
swelled herself to bursting, as it was ; but if she had, besides, 
had all frogland for spectators and applauders, if she had 
been puffed up with huzzas ! and vivas ! and been made a 
worshipped spectacle wherever she carried herself, who 
would have wondered at all her children's bursting them- 
selves, one after the other, in spite of her example ? I pity, 
for my part (next to suffering nations), every king in exist- 
ence, except Ferdinand ; and will pity him too when he 
is put out of a condition to slaughter those who would have 
made him an honest man. 

Pleasant C. R. ! let me recall my happier rhymes and 
rainy days by thinking of thee. C. R. is one of those 
happy persons whom goodness, imagination, and a tranquil 
art conspire to keep in a perpetual youth. He and his 
brother once called upon a man whom I knew, who told 
me he had seen " the young gentlemen," and yet this man 
was not old, and C. R. was seven-and-thirty if he was a 
day. C. R. has a quaint manner with him, which some 
take for simplicity. It is, but not of the sort which they 
take it for. I could hear it talk for an hour together, and 
have heard it, delighting all the while at the interest he can 
take in a trifle, and the entertainment he can raise out of it. 
His simplicity is anything but foolishness, though it is full 
of bonhomie. He is a nice observer. At the same time he 
is as romantic as a sequestered schoolmaster, and will make 
as grave Latin quotations. He produces a history out of 
a whistle. He will describe to you a steam-engine or a 
water-mill, with all the machinery and the noise to boot, 
till you die at once with laughter and real interest at the 
gravity of his enthusiasm. He makes them appear living 
things, as the fulling-mills did to Don Quixote. One 
day he gave us all an account of a man he had seen in the 
Strand, who was standing with a pole in his hand, at the 
top of which was a bladder, and Underneath the bladder a 



i 5 o RAINY-DAY POETRY 

bill. He told us what a mystery this excited in the minds 
of the spectators, and how they looked, first at "the man," 
then at " the bill," and then " at the bladder ; " — and 
again, said he, they looked at the bladder, then at the bill, 
and so on, ringing the changes on these words till we saw 
nothing before us in life but a man holding these two 
phenomena. We begged him to change the word " man " 
into " body," that charm of alliteration might be added ; 
and he complied with a passing laugh, and the greatest 
good nature conceivable, entering into the joke, and yet 
feeling a real gravity in commenting upon the people's 
astonishment. This combination of "bill, body, and 
bladder " was, after all, nothing but a man standing with 
an advertisement of blacking, or an eating-house, or some 
such thing. We have been thankful ever since that " such 
things are." 

I once rode with C. R. from Gainsborough to Doncaster, 
making rhymes with him all the way on the word philo- 
sopher. We made a hundred and fifty, and were only 
stopped by arriving at our journey's end. Readers un- 
initiated in doggerel may be startled at this ; but nothing 
is more true. The words were all different, and legitimate 
doggerel rhymes ; though, undoubtedly, the rhymes them- 
selves must often have been repeated, that is to say the 
same consonants must have begun them. The following 
is a rainy-day production on the same subject, exhausting, 
we believe, the real alphabetical quantum of rhymes, with 
their combinations. But it is submitted with deference to 
the learned. We dedicate it to our pleasant friend, heartily 
wishing we could have such another ride with him to- 
morrow. 

You talk of rhyming to the word Philosopher. — 
That jade the Muse ! It's doubtless very cross f her 
To stint one even in rhymes, which are the dross of her ; 
I can't but think that it's extremely gross of her: 



RAINY-DAY POETRY 151 

I told her once how very wrong it was of her: 

If I could help, I'd not ask one, that's poz, of her: 

I would not quote procumbit humis bos of her; 

Nor earn a single lettuce yclept Cos of her ; 

I would not speak to Valcnaer or to Voss of her : 

Nor Dryden's self, although the Great High Joss of her: 

I would not care for the di-vinum os of her. 

No, though she rhymed me the whole mos,flos. ros, of her : 

Walking in woods I wouldn't brush the moss off her : 

Nor in the newest green grown take the gloss of her : 

In winter-time I wouldn't keep the snows off her: 

And yet I don't think either I could go so far : 

Thy anger, certainly, I couldn't show so far : 

I didn't think the hatchet I could throw so far. 

Good heavens ! now I reflect, I love the nose of her : 

1 could cut off my hair to tie the hose of her : 

The brightest eyes are nothing to the doze of her : 

Love in my heart the smallest keepsake stows of her : 

O, for as many kisses as I chose of her ! 

Since I had one there's no sweet air but blows of her : 

There's not a stream but murmurs as it flows of her; 

I could exalt to heav'n the very clothes of her. 

I wonder how a man can speak in prose of her : 

Yet some have e'en said ill (while my blood froze) of her : 

Never again shall any be that crows offer 

To do her harm, or with his quid pro quos huff her. 

With pleasure I could every earthly woe suffer 

Rather than see the charmer's little toe suffer : 

'Tis only gouty Muses that should so suffer. 




SJ\[CjJL£SH 
JhsMALSS 



^p^i 




THEIR COSTUMES AND BEARING 

The writer of the following letter is very unmerciful on the 
ribands, plumes, and other enormities of the present mode 
of dress, and having torn these to pieces, proceeds to rend 
away veils and gowns, and fall plumb down upon the pretty 
feet of the wearers, and their mode of walking ; but when 
our fair readers see what he says of their faces, and call to 
mind how Momus found fault with the steps of Venus her- 
self, we trust they will forgive his fury for the sake of his 
love, and consider whether so fond an indignation does not 
contain something worth their reflection. 

French Ladies versus English. 

To the Editor. 
Sir, — 
It is Mrs Gore, I think, in one of her late novels, who 
says, that ninety-nine English women out of a hundred, dress 
infinitely worse than as many French ; but that the hun- 
dredth dresses with a neatness, elegance, and propriety 
152 



ENGLISH & FRENCH FEMALES 153 

which is not to be paralleled on the other side of the channel. 
On my relating this to a fair relation of mine, she replied, 
" Very true, — only I never saw that hundredth." Nor has 
any one else. Without exception, the English women 
wear the prettiest faces and the ugliest dresses of any in the 
known world. A Hottentot hangs her sheepskin caross on 
her shoulders with more effect, — and it is from what I see 
every day of my life that I come to this conclusion. 

I was the other day at a large shop at the west end of 
the town, where, if anywhere, we may expect to meet with 
favourable specimens of our countrywomen. Not a bit of 
it. There were a couple of French ladies there dressed 
smartly and tidily, one in blue and the other in rose-coloured 
silk, with snug little scutty bonnets guiltless of tawdry rib- 
bons or dingy plumes ; and great was their astonishment at 
beholding the nondescript figures which ever and anon 
passed by. First came gliding out of her carriage, with a 
languishing air, a young Miss all ringlets down to the knees 
— feathers drooping on one side of her bonnet, flowers on 
the other, and an immense Brussels veil (or some such 
trash) hanging behind ; her gown pinned to her back like 
rags on a Guy Fawkes ; a large warming-pan of a watch, 
secured round her neck by as many chains, gold, silver, and 
pinchbeck, as an Italian brigand ; — with divers other articles, 
as handkerchiefs, boas, &c, which however costly and 
beautiful individually, formed altogether an unbecoming and 
cook-maidish whole. Then came the two old ladies — but 
I give them up, as too far gone in their evil ways of dressing 
to hope for amelioration. Ditto for the widows in their 
hideous black bonnets, with a foot and a half of black crape 
tacked to each side like wings to a paper kite — the horned 
caps of Edward the Confessor are nothing to them. The 
French damsels alluded to above, eyed one or two of these 
machines (they can go by no other name) with considerable 
attention, as if doubting the sanity of the wearer. 



154 ENGLISH & FRENCH FEMALES 

" One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead," 

says Pope's Narcissa. I might address a similar question 
to English widows — 

" One would not, sure, be frightful when one mourns.''* 

I looked from one end to the other of the crowded shop, in 
hopes of finding some happy lady to retrieve the honour of 
her country — but in vain. All wore the same ugly garment 
more akin to a night-shift than a gown ; the same warming- 
pan watch and chains ; the same fly-flapping bonnet with 
bunches of ugly ribands. Altogether they formed an 
awkward contrast to the " tight, reg'lar-built French craft," 
as Mathews's Tom Piper calls them. This time, however, 
it was the English who were "rigged so rum." 

And then their walk ! Oh quondam Indicator ! quondam 
Tatler ! quondam and present lover of all that is good and 
graceful ! could you not " indicate " to our English ladies 
the way to walk ? In what absurd book was it that I read 
the other day that French women walk ill, because, from 
the want of trottoirs in France, they get a habit of " pick- 
ing" with one foot, which gave a jerking air to the gait. 
The aristocratic noodle ! whose female relations shuffle 
about on smooth pavements, till they forget how to walk at 
all ! I would not have them cross my grass-plat for the 
world. They would decapitate the very daisies. How 
infinitely superior is the Frenchwoman's brisk springy step 
(albeit caused by a most plebeian and un-English want of 
causeways), to the languid sauntering gait of most English 
dames ! Nature teaches the one — the drill-sergeant can do 
nothing with the other. I wonder how they walked in the 
days of Charles II. Surely Nell Gwynne and my Lady 
Castlemaine walked well — and if they did, they walked 
differently from what they do now . 

I hope that some good creature like the London 
Journalist, who believes in the unprovability of all things, 



ENGLISH & FRENCH FEMALES 155 

will take up this subject. A word from him would set 
English ladies upon trying, at least, to improve both in 
dressing and walking. There are models enough — look at 
the French, the Spanish, the Italians. They have not 
better opportunities for dressing well than we, and yet they 
beat us hollow. Why can't we have a basquina or mantilla, 
as well as any one else ? Let us endeavour. 

Above all, let no one suppose that the Writer of these 
desultory remarks is in the least deficient in love and duty 
to his fair countrywomen. If he offends any of them, they 
must imagine that it has been caused by excess of zeal for 
their interests. Bless their bonnie faces ! if we could screw 
English heads on French figures, what women there would 
be — sure/y / 

An Old Crony. 

July JtA, 1834. 

To enter properly into this subject, however trifling it 
may appear (as indeed is the case with almost every subject 
so called), would be to open a wide field of investigation 
into morals, laws, climates, &c. Perhaps climate alone, by 
reason of the variety of habits it generates in consequence 
of its various heats, colds, and other influences, will ever 
prevent an entire similarity of manners, whatever may be 
the approximation of opinion ; but taking for granted, as is 
not unreasonable, that the progress of knowledge and inter- 
course will not be without its effect in bringing the customs 
of civilised countries nearer to one another, and that each 
will be for availing itself of what is best and pleasantest 
amongst its neighbours, it becomes worth anybody's while 
to consider, in what respect it is advisable or otherwise to 
modify the behaviour or manners accordingly. We can 
say little, from personal experience, how the case may be in 
the present instance with regard to French manners. We 
have a great opinion of Mrs Gore, both as a general 
observer, and one that particularly understands what is 



156 ENGLISH & FRENCH FEMALES 

charming in her own sex. On the other hand, from 
books, and from a readiness to be pleased with those who 
wish to please, and even from merely having passed through 
France in our way from another country, we have got a 
strong impression that the " hundredth " Frenchwoman, as 
well as the hundredth Englishwoman, nay, the hundredth 
Italian, that is to say, the one that carries the requisite 
graces, the beau ideal, of any country to its height, is likely 
to be so charming a person, in dress and everything else, to 
her own countrymen, that what Mrs Gore says of the 
perfectly dressing Englishwoman, is precisely the same thing 
that would be said of the perfectly dressing Frenchwoman by 
the French, and of her Italian counterpart by the Italians. 
It is impossible, unless we are half-foreigners, or unless our 
own nation is altogether of an inferior grade (and then per- 
haps our prejudices and irritation would render it equally 
so) to get rid of some one point of national preference in 
forming judgments of this kind. Our friend the old Crony, 
we see, for all his connoisseurship and crony-ism, his regard 
for a certain piquancy of perfection in the French dress and 
walk, and his wish that his fair countrywomen would " take 
steps " after their fashion, cannot get rid of the preference 
in which he was brought up for the beauty of the English 
countenance. We have a similar feeling in favour even of 
a certain subjected manner, a bending gentleness, (how shall 
we term it ?) in the bearing of the sweetest of our country- 
women, not exactly connected with decision of step, nor 
perhaps with variety of harmony : for all pleasures run into 
one another, if they are of a right sort and the ground of them 
true. Look at the paintings of the French, and you will 
find, in like manner, that their ideal of a face, let them try 
to universalise it as they can, is a French one ; and so it is 
with the Spanish and Italian paintings, and with the Greek 
statues. The merry African girls shriek with horror when 
they first look upon a white traveller. Their notion of a 



ENGLISH & FRENCH FEMALES 157 

beautiful complexion is a skin shining like Warren's 
blacking. 

It is proper to understand, in any question, great or 
small, the premises from which we set out, the point which 
is required. In the dress and walk of females, as in all 
other matters in which they are concerned, the point of 
perfection, we conceive, is that which shall give us the best 
possible idea of perfect womanhood. We are not to con- 
sider the dress by itself, nor the walk by itself, but as the 
dress and the walk of the best and pleasantest woman, and 
how far therefore it does her justice. This produces the 
consideration of what we look upon as a perfect female ; 
people will vary in their opinions on this head ; and hence 
even so easy a looking question as the one before us, 
becomes invested with difficulties. The opinion will 
depend greatly on the temperament as well as the under- 
standing of the judge. Our correspondent, for instance, is 
evidently a lively fellow, old or young, and given a good 
deal rather to the material than to the spiritual ; and hence 
his notion of perfection tends towards a union of the trim 
and the lively, the impulsive, and yet withal to the self- 
possessed. He is one, we conceive, who would, "have no 
nonsense," as the phrase is, in his opinion of the possible or 
desirable ; and who is in no danger of the perils, either 
of sentimentality or sentiment ; either of an affected re- 
finement of feeling or any very serious demand of any sort. 
He is not for bringing into the walks of publicity, male or 
female, the notions of sequestered imaginations, nor to have 
women glancing and bashful like fawns. He is for having 
all things tight and convenient as a dressing-case ; " neat as 
imported " ; polished, piquant, well packed, and with no 
more flowers upon it than serve to give a hint of the 
smart pungency within, like a bottle of attar of roses, or 
fleur-d'epine. We do not quarrel with him. Chacun a 
son gout. Every man to his taste. Nay, his taste is our 



158 ENGLISH & FRENCH FEMALES 

own, as far as concerns the improvement of female manners 
in ordinary. We do think that the general style of female 
English dressing and walking would be benefited by an 
inoculation of that which we conceive him to recommend. 
We have no predilection in favour of shuffling, and 
shouldering, and lounging, of a mere moving onwards of 
the feet, and an absence of all grace and self-possession. 
We can easily believe, that the French women surpass the 
English in this respect, because their climate is livelier, and 
themselves better taught and respected. People may start 
at that last word, but there is no doubt that the general run 
of French females are better taught, and therefore more 
respected, than the same number of English. They read 
more, they converse more, they are on more equal terms 
with the other sex (as they ought to be), and hence the 
other sex have more value for their opinions, ay, and for 
their persons ; for the more sensible a woman is, supposing 
her not to be masculine, the more attractive she is, in her 
proportionate power to entertain. But whether it is that 
we are English, or fonder of poetry in its higher sense 
than of vers de socle te or the poetry of polite life, we cannot 
help feeling a prejudice in favour of Mrs Gore's notion 
about the " hundredth " Englishwoman ; though perhaps 
the " hundredth " Frenchwoman, if we could see her, or 
the hundredth Italian or Spanish woman, would surpass all 
others, by dint of combining the sort of private manner 
which we have in our eye, with some exquisite implication 
of a fitness for general intercourse, which we have never yet 
met with. 

Meantime, we repeat, that we give up to our corre- 
spondent's vituperations the gait of English females in 
general, and their dress also ; though it is a little hard in 
him to praise the smallness of the French bonnet at the 
expense of the largeness of the English, when it is 
recollected that the latter are copied from France, and that 



ENGLISH & FRENCH FEMALES 159 

our fair countrywomen were ridiculed on their first visit 
there after the war, for the very reverse appearance. But 
it is to the spirit of our mode of dressing and walking 
that we object ; and both are unfit either for the private or 
public " walk " of life, because both are alike untaught and 
unpleasing, — alike indicative of minds not properly culti- 
vated, and of habitual feelings that do not care to be 
agreeable. The walk is a saunter or shuffle, and the dress 
a lump. Or if not a lump throughout, it is a lump at 
both ends, with a horrible pinch in the middle. A tight- 
laced Englishwoman is thus, from head to foot, a most 
painful sight ; her best notion of being charming is con- 
fined to three inches of ill-used ribs and liver ; while her 
head is either grossly ignorant of the harm she is doing 
herself, or her heart more deplorably careless of the conse- 
quences to her offspring. 

Are we of opinion then, that the dress and walk of 
Englishwomen would be bettered, generally speaking, by 
taking the advice of our correspondent ? Most certainly 
we are ; and for this reason ; that there is some sense of 
grace, at all events, in the attire and bearing of the females 
of the Continent ; some evidence of mind, and some testi- 
mony to the proper claims of the person ; whereas, the 
only idea in the heads of the majority with us is that of 
being in fashion merely because it is the fashion, or of 
dressing in a manner to show how much they can afford. 
This is partly owing, no doubt, to our being a commercial 
people, and also to the struggles which everybody has been 
making for the last forty years to seem richer than they are, 
some for the sake or concealing how they have decreased 
in means, and others to show how they have risen ; but a 
nation may be commercial, and yet have a true taste. The 
Florentines had it, when they were at once the leaders of 
trade and of the fine arts, in the time of Lorenzo de 
Medici. It is to our fine arts and our increasing knowledge 



t6o ENGLISH & FRENCH FEMALES 

that we ourselves must look to improvement even in dress, 
in default of being impelled to it by greater liveliness of 
spirit, or a more convenient climate. We shall then learn 
to oppose even the climate better, and to furnish it with 
the grace and colour which it wants. In France, the 
better temperature of the atmosphere, as well as intellectual 
and moral causes, impels people to a livelier and happier 
way of walking. They have no reason to look as if they 
were uncomfortable. In the south of Europe, where every- 
thing respires animal sensibility, and love and music divide 
the time with business, the most unaffected people acquire 
an apparent consciousness and spring in the gait, which in 
England would be thought ostentatious. It gave no such 
idea to the severe and simple Dante, when (in the poetical 
spirit of the image, and not of course in the letter,) he 
praised his mistress for moving along like '* a peacock," and 
a " crane. " 

Soave a guisa va di un bel pavone, 
Diritta sopra se come una grue. 

Sweetly she goes, like the bright peacock ; strait 
Above herself, like to the lady crane. 

Petrarch, speaking of Laura, does not venture upon these 
primeval images ; but still he shows how much he thought 
of the beauty of a woman's steps ! Laura too was a 
Frenchwoman, not an Italian, and probably had a differ- 
ent kind of walk. Petrarch expresses the moral graces 
of it. 

Non era l'andar suo cosa mortale, 

Ma d'angelica forma. 

Her walk was like no mortal thing, but shaped 
After an angel's. 

In English poetry the lover speaks with the usual enthu- 
siasm of his mistress's eyes and lips, etc., but he scarcely 
ever mentions her walk. The fact is remarkable, and the 



ENGLISH & FRENCH FEMALES 161 

reason too obvious. The walk is not worth mention. 
Italian and (we believe) Spanish poetry abound with the 
reverse. Milton, deeply imbued with the Italian, as well as 
with his own perceptions of beauty as a great poet, did not 
forget, in his description of Eve, to say that 

" Grace ivas in all her steps, Heaven in her eye, 
/// every gesture dignity and love." 

This moving and gesticulating beauty was not English ; 
at least she is not the Englishwoman of our days. Mrs 
Hutchinson perhaps might have been such a woman ; or 
the ladies of the Bridgewater family, for whom he wrote 
his Comus. In Virgil, JEneas is not aware that his mother 
Venus has been speaking with him in the guise of a wood- 
nymph, till she begins to move away : the "divinity " then 
became apparent. 

" Et vera incessu patuit dea," 

" And by her walk the Queen of Love is known." 

Dry den. 

The women of Spain and Spanish America are cele- 
brated throughout the world for the elegance of their 
walking, and for the way in which they carry their veil or 
mantilla, as alluded to by our correspondent. Knowing it 
only from books, we cannot say precisely in what the beauty 
of their walk consists ; but we take it to be something 
between stateliness and vivacity — between a consciousness 
of being admired, and that grace which is natural to any 
human being who is well made, till art or diffidence spoils it. 
It is the perfection, we doubt not, of animal elegance. We 
have an English doubt, whether we should not require an 
addition or modification of something, not indeed diffident, 
but perhaps not quite so confident,— something which to the 
perfection of animal elegance, should add that of intellectual 
and moral refinement, and a security from the chances of 



162 THE ITALIAN GIRL 

coarseness and violence. But all these are matters of 
breeding and bringing up, — ay, of " birth, parentage, and 
education," and we should be grateful when we can get any 
one of them. Better have even a good walk than nothing, 
for there is some refinement in it, and moral refinement too, 
though we may not always think the epithet very applicable 
to the possessor. Good walking and good dressing, truly 
so called, are alike valuable, only inasmuch as they afford 
some external evidence, however slight, of a disposition to 
orderliness and harmony in the mind within, — of shapeliness 
and grace in the habitual movements of the soul. 



THE ITALIAN GIRL 

The sun was shining beautifully one summer evening, as if 
he bade sparkling farewell to a world which he had made 
happy. It seemed also, by his looks, as if he promised to 
make his appearance again to-morrow ; but there was at 
times a deep breathing western wind, and dark purple clouds 
came up here and there, like gorgeous waiters at a funeral. 
The children in a village not far from the metropolis were 
playing however on the green, content with the brightness 
of the moment, when they saw a female approaching, who 
gathered them about her by the singularity of her dress. It 
was not a very remarkable dress ; but any difference from 
the usual apparel of their country-women appeared so to 
them ; and crying out, " A French girl ! A French girl ! " 
they ran up to her, and stood looking and talking. 

The stranger seated herself upon a bench that was fixed 
between two elms, and for a moment leaned her head 
against one of them, as if faint with walking. But she 
raised it speedily, and smiled with complacency on the rude 
urchins. She had a boddice and petticoat on of different 




TKey r>>r\ up to Ke>* • 

&r*i j-tood looking *r.A b»lkir\g* 



THE ITALIAN GIRL 165 

colours, and a handkerchief tied neatly about her head with 
the point behind. On her hands were gloves without 
fingers ; and she wore about her neck a guitar, upon the 
strings of which one of her hands rested. The children 
thought her very handsome. Anybody else would also 
have thought her very ill ; but they saw nothing before 
them but a good-natured looking foreigner and a guitar, 
and they asked her to play. "0 che bel ragazzi/" said 
she, in a soft and almost inaudible voice ; — " Che visl 
lieti!" Y and she began to play. She tried to sing too, 
but her voice failed her, and she shook her head smilingly, 
saying "Statical stanca / " 2 "Sing — do sing," said the 
children ; and nodding her head, she was trying to do so, 
when a set of boys came up and joined in the request. 
" No, no," said one of the elder boys, " she is not well. 
You are ill, a'nt you, — Miss ? " added he, laying his hand 
upon hers as if to hinder it. He drew out the last word 
somewhat doubtfully, for her appearance perplexed him ; 
he scarcely knew whether to take her for a strolling 
musician or a lady strayed from a sick bed. "GrazieS" 
said she, understanding his look : — " troppo stanca : 
troppo." 3 

By this time the usher came up, and addressed her in 
French ; but she only understood a word here and there. 
He then spoke Latin, and she repeated one or two of his 
words, as if they were familiar to her. 

" She is an Italian ! " said he, looking round with a 
good-natured importance ; "for the Italian is but a bastard 
of the Latin." The children looked with the more wonder, 
thinking he was speaking of the fair musician. 

" Non dubito" continued the usher, " qu'in tu lectltas 
poetam ilium celtberrimum Tassonem ; 4 Taxum, I should say 

1 O what fine boys ! What happy faces ! 2 Weary ! Weary! 

a Thanks :— too weary ! too weary ! 

4 Doubtless you read that celebrated poet Tasso. 



1 66 THE ITALIAN GIRL 

properly, but the departure from the Italian name is con- 
siderable." The stranger did not understand a word. 
"I speak of Tasso," said the usher, — "of Tasso." 
il Tasso! Tasso!" repeated the fair minstrel; u oh — 
conosco — il Tas-so ; " 1 and she hung with an accent of 
beautiful languor upon the first syllable. 

"Yes," returned the worthy scholar, "doubtless your 
accent may be better. Then of course you know those 
classical lines — 

Intanto Erminia infra l'ombros^ pianty 
D'antica selva dal cavallo — ivhat is it?" 

The stranger repeated the words in a tone of fondness, 
like those of an old friend : — 

Intanto Erminia infra l'omhrose piante 
D'antica selva dal cavallo e scorta ; 
Ne piu governo il fren la man tremante, 
E mezza quasi par, tra viva e morta. 2 

Our usher's common-place book had supplied him with 
a fortunate passage, for it was a favourite one of her country- 
women. It also singularly applied to her situation. There 
was a sort of exquisite mixture of clearness in her utterance 
of these verses, which gave some of the children a better 
idea of French than they had had; for they could not get 
it out of their heads that she must be a French girl ; — 
" Italian-French perhaps," said one of them. But her 
voice trembled as she went on, like the hand she spoke of. 

" I have heard my poor cousin Montague sing those very 
lines," said the boy who prevented her from playing. 

"Montague," repeated the stranger very plainly, but 
turning paler and fainter. She put one of her hands in 

i O — I know — Tasso. 

- Meantime in the old wood, the palfrey bore 

Erminia deeper into shade and shade ; 
Her trembling hands could hold him in no more, 
And she appeared betwixt alive and dead. 



THE ITALIAN GIRL 167 

turn upon the boy's affectionately, and pointed towards the 
spot where the church was. 

" Yes, yes," cried the boy ; — " why, she knew my 
cousin : — she must have known him in Florence." 

" I told you," said the usher, "she was an Italian." 

" Help her to my aunt's," continued the youth, " she'll 
understand her : — lean upon me, Miss ; " and he repeated 
the last word without his former hesitation. 

Only a few boys followed her to the door, the rest having 
been awed away by the usher. As soon as the stranger 
entered the house and saw an elderly lady, who received her 
kindly, she exclaimed " La Signora Madre," and fell in a 
swoon at her feet. 

She was taken to bed, and attended with the utmost care 
by her hostess, who would not suffer her to talk till she had 
had a sleep. She merely heard enough to find out, that the 
stranger had known her son in Italy ; and she was thrown 
into a painful state of suspicion by the poor girl's eyes, which 
followed her about the room till the lady fairly came up and 
closed them. 

" Obedient! obedient!" said the patient : " obedient in 
everything : only the Signora will let me kiss her hand ; " 
and taking it with her own trembling one, she laid her cheek 
upon it, and it staid there till she had dropt asleep for 
weariness. 

". . . Silken rest 
Tie all thy cares up ! " 

thought her kind watcher, who was doubly thrown upon a 
recollection of that beautiful passage in Beaumont and 
Fletcher, by the suspicion she had of the cause of the 
girl's visit. "And yet," thought she, turning her eyes 
with a thin tear in them towards the church spire, " he was 
an excellent boy, — the boy of my heart." 

When the stranger woke, the secret was explained : and 
if the mind of her hostess was relieved, it was only the 



168 THE ITALIAN GIRL 

more touched with pity, and indeed moved with respect and 
admiration. The dying girl (for she evidently was dying, 
and happy at the thought of it) was the niece of an humble 
tradesman in Florence, at whose house young Montague, 
who was a gentleman of small fortune, had lodged and 
fallen sick during his travels. She was a lively, good- 
natured girl, whom he used to hear coquetting and playing 
the guitar with her neighbours ; and it was greatly on this 
account, that her considerate and hushing gravity struck him 
whenever she entered his room. One day he heard no 
more coquetting, nor even the guitar. He asked the 
reason, when she came to give him some drink ; and she 
said she had heard him mention some noise that disturbed 
him. 

" But you do not call your voice and your music a 
noise," said he, " do you, Rosaura ? I hope not, for I 
had expected it would give me strength to get rid of this 
fever and reach home." 

Rosaura turned pale, and let the patient into a secret ; 
but what surprised and delighted him was, that she played 
her guitar nearly as often as before, and sang too, only less 
sprightly airs. 

"You get better and better, Signor," said she, "every 
day, and your mother will see you and be happy. I hope 
you will tell her what a good doctor you had." 

" The best in the world," cried he ; and as he sat up in 
bed, he put his arm round her waist and kissed her. 

" Pardon me, Signora," said the poor girl to her hostess ; 
" but I felt that arm round my waist for a week after : ay, 
almost as much as if it had been there." 

" And Charles felt that you did," thought his mother ; 
"for he never told me the story." 

" He begged my pardon," continued she, " as I was 
hastening out of the room, and hoped I should not construe 
his warmth into impertinence. And to hear him talk so to 



THE ITALIAN GIRL 169 

me, who used to fear what he might think of myself; it 
made me stand in the passage, and lean my head against the 
wall, and weep such bitter, and yet such sweet tears ! — But 
he did not hear them. No, Madam, he did not know, 
indeed, how much I — how much I " 

" Loved him, child," interrupted Mrs Montague ; " you 
have a right to say so, and I wish he had been alive to say 
as much to you himself." 

" Oh, good God ! " said the dying girl, her tears flow- 
ing away, "this is too great a happiness for me, to hear his 
own mother talking so." And again she lays her weak 
head upon the lady's hand. 

The latter would have persuaded her to sleep again ; but 
she said she could not for joy : " for I'll tell you, Madam," 
continued she, " I do not believe you will think it foolish, 
for something very grave at my heart tells me it is not so ; 
but I have had a long thought," (and her voice and look 
grew more exalted as she spoke,) "which has supported 
me through much toil and many disagreeable things to this 
country and this place ; and I will tell you what it is, and 
how it came into my mind. I received this letter from your 
son." 

Here she drew out a paper which, though carefully 
wrapped up in several others, was much worn at the sides. 
It was dated from the village, and ran thus :— 

"'This comes from the Englishman whom Rosaura 
nursed so kindly at Florence. She will be sorry to hear 
that her kindness was in vain, for he is dying ; and he 
sometimes fears that her sorrow will be greater than he 
could wish it to be. But marry one of your kind country- 
men, my good girl ; for all must love Rosaura who know 
her. If it shall be my lot ever to meet her in heaven, I will 
thank her as a blessed tongue only can.' 

" As soon as I read this letter, Madam," continues 
Rosaura, "and what he said about heaven, it flashed into 



i7o THE ITALIAN GIRL 

my head, that though I did not deserve him on earth, I 
might, perhaps, by trying and patience, deserve to be joined 
with him in heaven, where there is no distinction of persons. 
My uncle was pleased to see me become a religious pilgrim ; 
but he knew as little of the world as I, and I found that 
I could earn my way to England better, and quite as 
religiously, by playing my guitar, which was also more 
independent ; and I had often heard your son talk of 
independence and freedom, and commend me for doing 
what he was pleased to call so much kindness to others. 
So I played my guitar from Florence all the way to 
England, and all that I earned by it I gave away to the 
poor, keeping enough to procure me lodging. I lived on 
bread and water, and used to weep happy tears over it, 
because I looked up to heaven and thought he might see 
me. I have sometimes, though not often, met with small 
insults ; but if ever they threatened to grow greater, I 
begged the people to desist in the kindest way I could, 
even smiling, and saying I would please them if I had the 
heart ; which might be wrong, but it seemed as if deep 
thoughts told me to say so ; and they used to look 
astonished, and left off; which made me the more hope 
that St Philip and the Holy Virgin did not think ill of my 
endeavours. So playing, and giving alms in this manner, I 
arrived in the neighbourhood of your beloved village, where 
I fell sick for a while, and was very kindly treated in an 
out-house ; though the people, I thought, seemed to look 
strange and afraid on this crucifix — (though your son never 
did), — though he taught me to think kindly of everybody, 
and hope the best, and leave everything, except our own 
endeavours, to Heaven. I fell sick, Madam, because I 
found for certain that the Signor Montague was dead, 
albeit I had no hope that he was alive. " 

She stopped awhile for breath, for she was growing 
weaker and weaker, and her hostess would fain have had 



THE ITALIAN GIRL 171 

her keep silence ; but she pressed her hand as well as she 
might, and prayed with such a patient panting of voice to 
be allowed to go on, that she was. She smiled thankfully 
and resumed : — 

" So when — so when I got my strength a little again, I 
walked on and came to the beloved village, and I saw the 
beautiful white church spire in the trees ; and then I knew 
where his body slept, and I thought some kind person 
would help me to die, with my face looking towards the 
church as it now does ; and death is upon me, even now : 
but lift me a little higher on the pillows, dear lady, that I 
may see the green ground of the hill." 

She was raised up as she wished, and after looking awhile 
with a placid feebleness at the hill, said in a very low voice, 
'* Say one prayer for me, dear lady ; and if it be not too 
proud in me, call me in it your daughter." 

The mother of her beloved summoned up a grave and 
earnest voice, as well as she might, and knelt and said, 
" O Heavenly Father of us all, who in the midst of thy 
manifold and merciful bounties bringest us into strong 
passes of anguish, which nevertheless thou enablest us to 
go through, look down, we beseech thee, upon this thy 
young and innocent servant, the daughter — that might have 
been — of my heart, and enable her spirit to pass through 
the struggling bonds of mortality, and be gathered into thy 
rest with those we love. Do, dear and great God, of thy 
infinite mercy, for we are poor weak creatures, both young 

and old " here her voice melted away into a breathing 

tearfulness ; and after remaining on her knees a moment 
longer, she rose and looked upon the bed, and saw that the 
weary smiling one was no more. 




POETS' houses 

A paper in Mr Disraeli's " Curiosities of Literature " upon 
" Literary Residences," is very amusing and curious ; but 
it begins with a mistake in saying that " men of genius have 
usually been condemned to compose their finest works, 
which are usually their earliest ones, under the roof of a 
garret ; " and the author seems to think, that few have 
realized the sort of house they wished to live in. The 
combination of " genius and a garret " is an old joke, but 
little more. Genius has been often poor enough, but 
seldom so much so as to want what are looked upon as the 
decencies of life. In point of abode, in particular, we take 
it to have been generally lucky as to the fact, and not at 
all so grand in the desire as Mr Disraeli seems to imagine. 
Ariosto, who raised such fine structures in his poetry, was 
asked indeed how he came to have no greater one when he 
built a house for himself; and he answered, that "palaces 



POETS' HOUSES 173 

are easier built with words than stones." It was a pleasant 
answer, and fit for the interrogator ; but Ariosto valued 
himself much upon the snug little abode which he did 
build, as may be seen by the inscription still remaining upon 
it at Ferrara l ; and we will venture to say for the cordial, 
tranquillity-loving poet, that he would rather live in such 
a house as that, and amuse himself with building palaces in 
his poetry, than have undergone the fatigue, and drawn 
upon himself the publicity, of erecting a princely mansion, 
full of gold and marble. No mansion which he could have 
built would have equalled what he could fancy ; and poets 
love nests from which they can take their flights — not 
worlds of wood and stone to strut in, and give them a 
sensation. If so, they would have set their wits to get 
rich, and live accordingly ; which none of them ever did 
yet, — at any rate, not the greatest. Ariosto notoriously 
neglected his " fortunes" — in that sense of the word. 
Shakspeare had the felicity of building a house for himself, 
and settling in his native town ; but though the best in it, 
it was nothing equal to the "seats" outside of it (where 
the richer men of the district lived) ; and it appears to 
have been a " modest mansion," not bigger, for instance, 
than a good-sized house in Red Lion Street, or some other 
old quarter in the metropolis. Suppose he had set Ms great 
wits to rise in the state and accumulate money, like Lionel 
Cranfield, for example, or Thomas Cromwell, the black- 
smith's son. We know that any man who chooses to be- 
gin systematically with a penny, under circumstances at all 
favourable, may end with thousands. Suppose Shakspeare 
had done it; he might have built a house like a mountain. 
But he did not, — it will be said, — because he was a poet, 
and poets are not getters of money. Well ; and for the 

1 See an engraving of the house itself, with its inscription, in 
the " Gallery of Portraits," No. XXVIII., Article— " Ariosto." 
But it wants the garden-ground which belonged to it, 



i 7 4 POETS' HOUSES 

same reason, poets do not care for the mightiest things 
which money can get. It cannot get them health, and 
freedom, and a life in the green fields, and mansions in 
fairy-land ; and they prefer those, and a modest visible 
lodging. 

Chaucer had a great large house to live in, — a castle, — 
because he was connected with royalty ; but he does not 
delight to talk of such places : he is all for the garden, and 
the daisied fields, and a bower like a " pretty parlour." 
His mind was too big for a great house ; which challenges 
measurement with its inmates, and is generally equal to 
them. He felt elbow-room, and heart-room, only out in 
God's air, or in the heart itself, or in the bowers built by 
Nature, and reminding him of the greatness of her love. 

Spenser lived at one time in a castle, — in Ireland, — a 
piece of forfeited property, given him for political services ; 
and he lived to repent it : for it was burnt in civil warfare, 
and his poor child burnt with it ; and the poet was driven 
back to England, broken-hearted. But look at the houses 
he describes in his poems, — even he who was bred in a 
court, and loved pomp, after his fashion. He bestows the 
great ones upon princes and allegorical personages, who 
live in state and have many servants, (for the largest houses, 
after all, are but collections of small ones, and of unfitting 
neighbourhoods too) ; but his nests, his poetic bowers, his 
delicia and amanitates, he keeps for his hermits and his 
favourite nymphs, and his flowers of courtesy ; and observe 
how he delights to repeat the word "little," when de- 
scribing them. His travellers come to " little valleys," 
in which, through the tree-tops, comes reeking up a " little 
smoke," (a " chearefull signe," quoth the poet,) and 

" To little cots in which the shepherds lie ; " 

and though all his little cots are not happy, yet he is ever 
happiest when describing them, should they be so, and 



POETS' HOUSES 175 

showing in what sort of contentment his mind delighted 
finally to rest. 

" A little lowly heritage it was 

Down in a dale, hard by a forest's side, 
Far from resort of people, that did pass 
In travel to and fro. A little wide 
There was an holy chappell edifyde, 
Wherein the hermit dewly wont to say 
His holy things each morn and eventide ; 
Thereby a crystall streame did gently play, 
Which from a sacred fountain welled forth alway. 

Arrived there, the little house they fill, 

Nor look for entertainment where none was ; 

Rest is their feast, and all things at their will ; 

The noblest mind the best contentment has." 

Milton, who built the Pandemonium, and filled it with 

" A thousand demi-gods on golden seats," 

was content if he could but get a u garden-house " to live 
in, as it was called in his time ; that is to say, a small house 
in the suburbs, with a bit of garden to it. He required 
nothing but a tree or two about him, to give him " airs of 
Paradise." His biographer shows us, that he made a point 
of having a residence of this kind. He lived as near as he 
could to the wood-side and the fields, like his fellow- 
patriot, M. Beranger, who would have been the Andrew 
Marvell of those times, and adorned his great friend as the 
other did, or like his Mirth {J Allegro) visiting his 
Melancholy. 

And hear beloved Cowley, quiet and pleasant as the 
sound in his trees : — " I never had any other desire so 
strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I 
have had always, — that I might be master at last of a 
small house and large garden, with very moderate con- 
veniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder 



176 POETS' HOUSES 

of my life only to the culture of them, and study of nature ; 
and there, with no design beyond my wall, 

' whole and entire to lie, 
In no unactive ease, and no unglorious poverty.'" 

The Garden. 

"I confess,'' says he, in another essay (on Greatness), 
" I love littleness almost in all things, — a little convenient 
estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a very 
little feast ; and if ever I were to fall in love again (which 
is a great passion, and therefore I hope I have done with 
it), it would be, I think, with prettiness, rather than with 
majestical beauty." 

(What charming writing ! — how charming as writing, as 
well as thinking ! and charming in both respects, because 
it possesses the only real perfection of either, — truth of 
feeling ) . 

Cowley, to be sure, got such a house as he wanted " at 
last," and was not so happy in it as he expected to be ; but 
then it was because he did only get it "at last" when he 
was growing old, and was in bad health. Neither might 
he have ever been so happy in such a place as he supposed 
(blest are the poets, surely, in enjoying happiness even in 
imagination ! ) yet he would have been less comfortable in a 
house less to his taste. 

Dryden lived in a house in Gerrard Street (then almost 
a suburb), looking, at the back, into the gardens of 
Leicester House, the mansion of the Sidneys. Pope had 
a nest at Twickenham, much smaller than the fine house 
since built upon the site ; and Thomson another at Rich- 
mond, consisting only of the ground-floor of the present 
house. Everybody knows what a rural house Cowper 
lived in. Shenstone's was but a farm adorned, and his 
bad health unfortunately hindered him from enjoying it. 
He married a house and grounds, poor man ! instead of a 



POETS' HOUSES 177 

wife ; which was being very " one-sided " in his poetry — 
and he found them more expensive than Miss Dolman 
would have been. He had better have taken poor Maria 
first, and got a few domestic cares of a handsome sort, to 
keep him alive and moving. Most of the living poets are 
dwellers in cottages, except Mr Rogers, who is rich, and 
has a mansion, looking on one of the parks ; but there it 
does look — upon grass and trees. He will have as much 
nature with his art as he can get. Next to a cottage of 
the most comfortable order, we should prefer, for our parts, 
if we must have servants and a household, one of those 
good old mansions of the Tudor age, or some such place, 
which looks like a sort of cottage-palace, and is full of old 
corners, old seats in the windows, and old memories. The 
servants, in such a case, would probably have grown old in 
one's family, and become friends ; and this makes a great 
difference in the possible comfort of a great house. It 
gives it old family warmth. 




ON RECEIVING A SPRIC OF LAUREL 
FROM VAUCLUSE 

And this piece of laurel is from Vaucluse ! Perhaps 
Petrarch, perhaps Laura sat under it ! This is a true 
present. What an exquisite, dry, old, vital, young-looking, 
everlasting twig it is ! It has been plucked nine months, 
and yet looks as hale and as crisp as if it would last ninety 
years. It shall last, at any rate, as long as its owner, and 
longer, if care and love can preserve it. How beautifully 
it is turned ! It was a happy pull from the tree. Its shape 
is the very line of beauty ; it has berries upon it, as if 
resolved to show us in what fine condition the trees are ; 
while the leaves issue from it, and swerve upwards with their 
elegant points, as though they had come from adorning the 
poet's head. Be thou among the best of one's keepsakes, 
thou gentle stem, in deliciis nostris ; and may the very maid- 
servant, who wonders to see thy withered beauty in its 

178 



RECEIVING SPRIG OF LAUREL 179 

fame, miss her lover the next five weeks, for not having the 
instinct to know that thou must have something to do with 
love! 

Perhaps Petrarch has felt the old ancestral boughs of 
this branch stretching over his head, and whispering to him 
of the name of Laura, of his love, and of their future 
glory ; for all these ideas used to be entwined in one. 
(Sestina 2, canzone 17, sonetti 162, 163, 164, 207, 224, 
&c.) Perhaps it is of the very stock of that bough, which 
he describes as supplying his mistress with a leaning-stock, 
when she sat in her favourite bower. 

Giovane donna sotto un verde lauro 
Vidi piu bianca e piu fredda che neve 
Non percossa dal sol molti e molt' anni ; 
E '1 suo parlar, e '1 bel viso, e le chiome, 
Mi piacquer si, ch' i' l'ho a gli occhi miei, 
Ed avro sempre, ov' io sia in poggio o'n riva. 

Part i. sestina 2. 
A youthful lady under a green laurel 
I saw, more fair and colder than white snows 
Veil'd from the sun for many and many a year : 
And her sweet face, and hair, and way of speaking, 
So pleased me, that I have her now before me, 
And shall have ever, whether on hill or lea. 

The laurel seems more appropriate to Petrarch than to 
any other poet. He delighted to sit under its leaves ; he 
loved it both for itself and for the resemblance of its name 
to that of his mistress ; he wrote of it continually, and he 
was called from out of its shade to be crowned with it in 
the capitol. It is a remarkable instance of the fondness 
with which he cherished the united idea of Laura and the 
laurel, that he confesses this fancy to have been one of the 
greatest delights he experienced in receiving the crown 
upon his head. 

It was out of Vaucluse that he was called. Vaucluse, 
Valchiusa, the Shut Valley (from which the French, in the 



180 RECEIVING SPRIG OF LAUREL 

modern enthusiasm for intellect, gave the name to the de- 
partment in which it lies), is a remarkable spot in the old 
poetical region of Provence, consisting of a little deep glen 
of green meadows, surrounded with rocks, and containing 
the fountain of the river Sorgue. Petrarch, when a boy of 
eight or nine years of age, had been struck with its beauty, 
and exclaimed that it was the place of all others he should 
like to live in, better than the most splendid cities. He 
resided there afterwards for several years, and composed in 
it the greater part of his poems. Indeed, he says in his 
account of himself, that he either wrote or conceived, in 
that valley, almost every work he produced. He lived in a 
little cottage, with a small homestead, on the banks of the 
river. Here he thought to forget his passion for Laura, 
and here he found it stronger than ever. We do not well 
see how it could have been otherwise ; for Laura lived no 
great way off, at Chabrieres, and he appears to have seen 
her often in the very place. He paced along the river ; he 
sat under the trees ; he climbed the mountains ; but Love, 
he says, was ever by his side, 

Ragionando con meco, ed io con lui. 

He holding talk with me, and 1 with him. 

We are supposing that all our readers are acquainted with 
Petrarch. Many of them doubtless know him intimately. 
Should any of them want an introduction to him, how 
should we speak of him in the gross ? We should say, 
that he was one of the finest gentlemen and greatest scholars 
that ever lived ; that he was a writer who flourished in Italy 
in the fourteenth century, at the time when Chaucer was 
young, during the reigns of our Edwards ; that he was the 
greatest light of his age ; that although so fine a writer 
himself, and the author of a multitude of works, or rather 
because he was both, he took the greatest pains to revive 
the knowledge of the ancient learning, recommending it 



RHYME AND REASON 181 

everywhere, and copying out large manuscripts with his 
own hand ; that two great cities, Paris and Rome, con- 
tended which should have the honour of crowning him ; 
that he was crowned publicly, in the Metropolis of the 
World, with laurel and with myrtle ; that he was the 
friend of Boccaccio, the Father of Italian Prose ; and 
lastly, that his greatest renown nevertheless, as well as the 
predominant feelings of his existence, arose from the long 
love he bore for a lady of Avignon, the far-famed Laura, 
whom he fell in love with on the 6th of April 1327, on a 
Good Friday ; whom he rendered illustrious in a multitude 
of sonnets, which have left a sweet sound and sentiment in 
the ear of all after lovers ; and who died, still passionately 
beloved, in the year 1348, on the same day and hour on 
which he first beheld her. Who she was, or why their 
connexion was not closer, remains a mystery. But that she 
was a real person, and that in spite of her staid manners she 
did not show an altogether insensible countenance to his 
passion, is clear from his long-haunted imagination, from 
his own repeated accounts — from all that he wrote, uttered, 
and thought. One love, and one poet, sufficed to give the 
whole civilised world a sense of delicacy in desire, of the 
abundant riches to be found in one single idea, and of the 
going out of a man's self to dwell in the soul and happiness 
of another, which has served to refine the passion for all 
modern times ; and perhaps will do so, as long as love 
renews the world. 



RHYME AND REASON: 

OR A NEW PROPOSAL TO THE PUBLIC 
RESPECTING POETRY IN ORDINARY 

A friend of ours the other day, taking up the miscellaneous 
poems of Tasso, read the title-page into English as 



i82 RHYME AND REASON 

follows: — "The Rhymes of the Lord Twisted Yew, 
Amorous, Bosky, and Maritime." l The Italians exhibit 
a modesty worthy of imitation in calling their Miscellaneous 
Poems, Rhymes. Twisted Yew himself, with all his 
genius, has put forth an abundance of these terminating 
blossoms, without any fruit behind them : and his country- 
men of the present day do not scruple to confess, that 
their living poetry consists of little else. The French have 
a game at verses, called Rhymed Ends (Bouts Rimes) 
which they practise a great deal more than they are aware ; 
and the English, though they are a more poetical people, 
and lay claim to the character of a less vain one, practise 
the same game to a very uncandid extent, without so much 
as allowing that the title is applicable to any part of it. 

Yet how many " Poems " are there among all these 
nations, of which we require no more than the Rhymes, to 
be acquainted with the whole of them ? You know what 
the rogues have done, by the ends they come to. For 
instance, what more is necessary to inform us of all which 
the following gentleman has for sale, than the bell which he 
tinkles at the end of his cry ? We are as sure of him, as 
of the muffin man. 





A Love Song. 




Grove, 


Heart. 


Kiss 


Night, 


Prove, 


Blest 


Rove, 


Impart, 


Bliss 


Delight. 


Love. 


Rest. 



Was there ever peroration more eloquent? Ever a series 
of catastrophes more explanatory of their previous history ? 
Did any Chinese gentleman ever show the amount of his 
breeding and accomplishments more completely, by the 
nails which he carries at his fingers' ends ? 

1 Rime del Signor Torquato Tasso, Amorose, Boschereccie, 
Marittime, &c. 



RHYME AND REASON 183 

The Italian Rimatori are equally comprehensive. We 
no sooner see the majority of their rhymes, than we long 
to save the modesty of their general pretensions so much 
trouble in making out their case. Their cores and amores 
are not to be disputed. Cursed is he that does not put 
implicit reliance upon their fedelta ! — that makes inquisition 
why the possessor piu superbo va. They may take the 
oaths and their seat at once. For example — 





Ben mio 


Fuggito 




Oh Dio 


Repito 




Per te. 


Da me, 


And again — 




Amata 
Sdegnata 
Turbata 
Irata 
Furore 
Dolore 
Non so. 


With — 




O cielo 
Dal gielo 
Tradire 
Languire 
Mori re 
SofFrire 
Non pu6. 



Where is the dull and inordinate persons that would require 
these rhymes to be filled up ? If they are brief as the love 
of which they complain, are they not pregnant in conclusions, 
full of a world of things that have passed, infinitely retro- 
spective, embracing, and enough? If not " vast," are they 
not " voluminous ? " 

It is doubtless an instinct of this kind that has made so 
many modern Italian poets intersperse their lyrics with those 
frequent single words, which are at once line and rhyme, 



i«4 



RHYME AND REASON 



and which some of our countrymen have in vain endeavoured 
to naturalise in the English opera. Not that they want the 
same pregnancy in our language, but because they are neither 
so abundant nor so musical ; and besides, there is something 
in the rest of our verses, however common-place, which 
seems to be laughing at the incursion of these vivacious 
strangers, as if it were a hop suddenly got up, and unseason- 
ably. We do not naturally take to anything so abrupt and 
saltatory. 

This objection, however, does not apply to the proposal 
we are about to make. Our rhymers must rhyme ; and as 
there is a great difference between single words thus mingled 
with longer verses, and the same rhymes in their proper 
places, it has struck us, that a world of time and paper 
might be saved to the ingenious rimatore, whether Italian or 
English, by foregoing at once all the superfluous part of his 
verses ; that is to say, all the rest of them ; and confining 
himself, entirely, to these very sufficing terminations. We 
subjoin some specimens in the various kinds of poetry ; and 
inform the intelligent bookseller, that we are willing to treat 
with him for any quantity at a penny a hundred. 







A Pastors 


>L. 




Dawn 


Each 


Fair 


Me 


Ray 


Plains 


Spoke 


Mine 


Too 


Heat 


Lawn 


Beech 


Hair 


Free 


Play 


Swains. 


Yoke 


Divine. 


Woo. 


Sweet. 


Tune 


Fields 


Shades 


Adieu 


Farewell 


Lays 


Bowers 


Darts 


Flocks 


Cows 


Moon 


Yields 


Maids 


Renew 


Dell 


Gaze. 


Flowers. 


Hearts. 


Rocks. 


Boughs. 



Here, without any more ado, we have the whole history of 
a couple of successful rural lovers comparing notes. They 
issue forth in the morning ; fall into the proper place and 
dialogue ; record the charms and kindness of their respective 
mistresses ; do justice at the same time to the fields and 







-J 



RHYME AND REASON 



.87 



shades ; and conclude by telling their flocks to wait as 
usual while they renew their addresses under the boughs. 
How easily is all this gathered from the rhymes ! and how 
worse than useless would it be in two persons, who have 
such interesting avocations, to waste their precious time and 
the reader's in a heap of prefatory remarks, falsely called 
verses ! 

Of Love-songs we have already had specimens ; and, by 
the bye, we did not think it necessary to give any French 
examples of our involuntary predecessors in this species of 
writing. The yeux and dangereux, mot andyb/, charmes and 
larmes, are too well-known as well as too numerous to 
mention. We proceed to lay before the reader a Prologue ; 
which, if spoken by a pretty actress, with a due sprinkling 
of nods and becks, and a judicious management of the 
pauses, would have an effect equally novel and triumphant. 
The reader is aware that a Prologue is generally made up 
of some observations on the drama in general, followed by 
an appeal in favour of the new one, some compliments to 
the nation, and a regular climax in honour of the persons 
appealed to. We scarcely need observe, that the rhymes 
should be read slowly, in order to give effect to the truly 
understood remarks in the intervals. 





Prologue. 




Age 


Fashion 


Applause 


Stage 


British Nation. 


Virtue's Cause 


Mind 




Trust 


Mankind 


Young 


Just 


Face 


Tongue 


Fear 


Trace 


Bard 


Here 


Sigh 


Reward 


Stands 


Tragedy 


Hiss 


Hands 


Scene 


Miss 


True 


Spleen 


Dare 


You. 


Pit 


British Fair 




Wit 







188 RHYME AND REASON 

Here we have some respectable observations on the 
advantages of the drama in every age, on the wideness of its 
survey, the different natures of tragedy and comedy, the 
vicissitudes of fashion, and the permanent greatness of the 
British empire. Then the young bard, new to the dramatic 
art, is introduced. He disclaims all hope of reward for 
any merit of his own, except that which is founded on a 
proper sense of the delicacy and beauty of his fair auditors, 
and his zeal in the cause of virtue. To this, at all events, 
he is sure his critics will be just ; and though he cannot 
help feeling a certain timidity, standing where he does, yet 
upon the whole, as becomes an Englishman, he is perfectly 
willing to abide by the decision of his countrymen's hands, 
hoping that he shall be found 

"... to sense, if not to genius true, 
And trusts his cause to virtue, and — to You." 

Should the reader, before he comes to this explication of 
the Prologue, have had any other ideas suggested by it, we 
will undertake to say, that they will at all events be found 
to have a wonderful general similitude ; and it is to 
be observed, that this very flexibility of adaptation is one 
of the happiest and most useful results of our pro- 
posed system of poetry. It comprehends all the possible 
common-places in vogue ; and it also leaves to the 
ingenious reader something to fill up ; which is a com- 
pliment that has always been held due to him by the best 
authorities. 

The next specimen is what, in a more superfluous 
condition of metre, would have been entitled Lines 
on Time. It is much in that genteel didactic taste, 
which is at once thinking and non-thinking, and has a 
certain neat and elderly dislike of innovation in it, 
greatly to the comfort of the seniors who adorn the 
circles. 



RHYME AND REASON 



89 



On Time, 



Time 


Child 


Race 


Hold 


Sublime 


Beguiled 


Trace 


Old 


Fraught 


Boy 


All 


Sure 


Thought 


Joy 


Ball 


Endure 


Power 


Man 


Pride 


Death 


Devour 


Span 


Deride 


Breath 


Rust 


Sire 


Aim 


Forgiven 


Dust 


Expire 


Same 


Heaven. 


Glass 




Undo 




Pass 


So 


New- 




Wings 


Go 







Kings 

We ask any impartial reader, whether he could possibly 
want a more sufficing account of the progress of this 
author's piece of reasoning upon Time ? There is, first, 
the address to the hoary god, with all his emblems and 
consequence about him, the scythe excepted ; that being an 
edge-tool to rhymers, which they judiciously keep inside 
the verse, as in a sheath. And then we are carried through 
all the stages of human existence, the caducity of which the 
writer applies to the world at large, impressing upon us the 
inutility of hope and exertion, and suggesting of course the 
propriety of thinking just as he does upon all subjects, 
political and moral, past, present, and to come. 




The cultivation of pleasant associations is, next to health, 
the great secret of enjoyment ; and, accordingly, as we 
lessen our cares and increase our pleasures, we may imagine 
ourselves affording a grateful spectacle to the Author of 
happiness. Error and misery, taken in their proportion, 
are the exceptions in his system. The world is most un- 
questionably happier upon the whole than otherwise ; or 
light and air, and the face of nature, would be different 
from what they are, and mankind no longer be buoyed up 
in perpetual hope and action. By cultivating agreeable 
thoughts, then, we tend, like bodies in philosophy, to the 
greater mass of sensations, rather than the less. 

What we can enjoy, let us enjoy like creatures made for 
that very purpose : what we cannot, let us, in the same 
character, do our best to deprive of its bitterness. Nothing 
can be more idle than the voluntary gloom with which 
people think to please Heaven in certain matters, and 
which they confound with serious acknowledgment, or 
with what they call a due sense of its dispensations. It 
is nothing but the cultivation of the principle of fear, in- 
stead of confidence, with whatever name they may disguise 
it. It is carrying frightened faces to court, instead of glad 
and grateful ones ; and is above all measure ridiculous, 
because the real cause of it, and, by the way, of a thousand 
other feelings which religious courtiers mistake for religion, 
cannot be concealed from the Being it is intended to 
honour. There is a dignity certainly in suffering well, 
where we cannot choose but suffer ; — if we must take 
physic, let us do it like men ; — but what would be his 
dignity, who, when he had the choice in his power, should 
make the physic bitterer than it is, or even to refuse to 
190 



ON DEATH AND BURIAL 191 

render it more palatable, purely to look grave over it, and 
do honour to the physician ? 

The idea of our dissolution is one of those which we 
most abuse in this manner, principally, no doubt, because 
it is abhorrent from the strong principle of vitality implanted 
in us, and the habits that have grown up with it. But 
what then ? So much the more should we divest it of all 
the unpleasant associations which it need not excite, and 
add to it all the pleasant ones which it will allow. 

But what is the course we pursue ? We remember 
having a strong impression, years ago, of the absurdity of 
our mode of treating a death-bed, and of the great desire- 
ableness of having it considered as nothing but a sick one, 
one to be smoothed and comforted, even by cordial helps, 
if necessary. We remember also how some persons, who, 
nevertheless, did too much justice to the very freest of our 
speculations to consider them as profane, were startled by 
this opinion, till we found it expressed, in almost so many 
words, by no less an authority than Lord Bacon. We got 
at our notion through a very different process, no doubt, — 
he through the depth of his knowledge, and we from the 
very buoyancy of our youth ; — but we are not disposed to 
think it the less wise on that account. " The serious," 
of course, are bound to be shocked at so cheering a pro- 
position ; but of them we have already spoken. The great 
objection would be, that such a system would deprive the 
evil-disposed of one terror in prospect, and that this 
principle of determent is already found too feeble to afford 
any diminution. The fact is, the whole principle is worth 
little or nothing, unless the penalty to be inflicted is pretty 
certain, and appeals also to the less sentimental part of our 
nature. It is good habits, — a well-educated conscience, — 
a little early knowledge, — the cultivation of generous 
motives, — must supply people with preventives of bad 
conduct ; their sense of things is too immediate and lively 



192 ON DEATH AND BURIAL 

to attend, in the long run, to anything else. We will be 
bound to say, generally speaking, that the prospective 
terrors of a death-bed never influenced any others than 
nervous consciences, too weak, and inhabiting organizations 
too delicate, to afford to be very bad ones. But, in the 
mean time, they may be very alarming to such consciences 
in prospect, and very painful to the best and most tem- 
perate of mankind in actual sufferance ; and why should 
this be, but, as we have said before, to keep bitter that 
which we could sweeten, and to persist in a mistaken want 
of relief, under a notion of its being a due sense of our 
condition ? We know well enough what a due sense of 
our condition is in other cases of infirmity ; and what is 
a death-bed but the very acme of infirmity, — the sickness, 
bodily and mental, that of all others has most need of 
relief ? 

If the death happens to be an easy one, the case is 
altered ; and no doubt it is oftener so than people imagine ; 
— but how much pains are often taken to render it difficult ! 
— First, the chamber, in which the dying person lies, is 
made as gloomy as possible with curtains, and vials, and 
nurses, and terrible whispers, and, perhaps, the continual 
application of handkerchiefs to weeping eyes ; — then, 
whether he wishes it or not, or is fit to receive it or not, 
he is to have the whole truth told him by some busy-body 
who never was so anxious, perhaps, in the cause of veracity 
before ; — and lastly, come partings, and family assemblings, 
and confusion of the head with matters of faith, and tremb- 
ling prayers, that tend to force upon dying weakness the 
very doubts they undertake to dissipate. Well may the 
soldier take advantage of such death-beds as these, to 
boast of the end that awaits him in the field. 

But having lost our friend, we must still continue to add 
to our own misery at the circumstance. We must heap 
about the recollection of our loss all the most gloomy and 



ON DEATH AND BURIAL 193 

distasteful circumstances we can contrive, and thus, perhaps, 
absolutely incline ourselves to think as little of him as 
possible. We wrap the body in ghastly habiliments, put 
it in as tasteless a piece of furniture as we can invent, dress 
ourselves in the gloomiest of colours, awake the barbarous 
monotony of the church-bell (to frighten every sick person 
in the neighbourhood), call about us a set of officious 
mechanics, of all sorts, who are counting their shillings, 
as it were, by the tears that we shed, and watching with 
jealousy every candle's end of their "perquisites," — and 
proceed to consign our friend or relation to the dust, under 
a ceremony that takes particular pains to impress that con- 
summation on our minds. — Lastly, come, tasteless tomb- 
stones and ridiculous epitaphs, with perhaps a skull and 
cross-bones at top ; and the tombstones are crowded to- 
gether, generally in the middle of towns, always near the 
places of worship, unless the church-yard is overstocked. 
Scarcely ever is there a tree on the spot ; — in some remote 
villages alone are the graves ever decorated with flowers. 1 
All is stony, earthy, and dreary. It seems as if, after 
having rendered everything before death as painful as 
possible, we endeavoured to subside into a sullen indiffer- 
ence, which contradicted itself by its own efforts. 

The Greeks managed these things better. It is curious 
that we, who boast so much of our knowledge of the 
immortality of the soul, and of the glad hopes of an after- 
life, should take such pains to make the image of death 
melancholy ; while, on the other hand, Gentiles whom we 
treat with so much contempt for their ignorance on those 
heads, should do the reverse, and associate it with emblems 
that ought to belong rather to us. But the truth is, that 
we know very little what we are talking about when we 
speak, in the gross, of the ancients, and of their ideas of 
Deity and humanity. The very finest and most amiable 

1 Matters have been improving since this article was written. 

N 



i 9 4 ON DEATH AND BURIAL 

part of our notions on those subjects comes originally from 
their philosophers ; all the rest, the gloom, the bad passions, 
the favouritism, are the work of other hands, who have 
borrowed the better materials as they proceeded, and then 
pretended an original right in them. Even the absurd parts 
of the Greek Mythology are less painfully absurd than 
those of any other ; because, generally speaking, they are 
on the cheerful side instead of the gloomy. We would 
rather have a Deity who fell in love with the beautiful 
creatures of his own making, than one who would consign 
nine hundred out of a thousand to destruction for not be- 
lieving ill of him. 

But not to digress from the main subject. The ancients 
did not render the idea of death so harshly distinct, as we 
do, from that of life. They did not extinguish all light 
and cheerfulness in their minds, and in things about them, 
as it were, on the instant ; neither did they keep before 
one's eyes, with hypochondriacal pertinacity, the idea of 
death's heads and skeletons, which, as representations of 
humanity, are something more absurd than the brick which 
the pedant carried about as the specimen of his house. 
They selected pleasant spots for sepulture, and outside the 
town ; they adorned their graves with arches and pillars, — 
with myrtles, lilies, and roses ; they kept up the social and 
useful idea of their great men by entombing them near the 
highway, so that every traveller paid his homage as he 
went ; and latterly, they reduced the dead body to ashes, — 
a clean and inoffensive substance — gathered it into a tasteful 
urn, and often accompanied it with other vessels of exquisite 
construction, on which were painted the most cheerful 
actions of the person departed, even to those of his every- 
day life, — the prize in the games, the toilet, the recollec- 
tions of his marriages and friendships — the figures of 
beautiful females, — everything, in short, which seemed to 
keep up the idea of a vital principle, and to say, " the creature 



ON DEATH AND BURIAL 195 

who so did and so enjoyed itself cannot be all gone." The 
image of the vital principle and of an after-life was, 
in fact, often and distinctly repeated on these vessels by a 
variety of emblems, animal and vegetable, particularly the 
image of Psyche, or the soul, by means of the butterfly, — 
an association which, in process of time, as other associa- 
tions gathered about it, gave rise to the most exquisite 
allegory in the world, the story of Cupid and Psyche. 

Now, we do not mean to say, that everybody who thinks 
as we do upon this subject, should or can depart at once 
from existing customs, especially the chief ones. These 
things must either go out gradually or by some convulsive 
movement in society, as others have gone ; and mere 
eccentricity is no help to their departure. What we cannot 
undo, let us only do as decently as possible ; but we might 
render the dying a great deal more comfortable, by just 
daring a little to consider their comforts and not our puerility : 
we might allow their rooms also to be more light and 
cheerful ; we might take pains to bring pleasanter associa- 
tions about them altogether ; and, when they were gone, we 
might cultivate our own a little better ; our tombstones 
might at least be in better taste ; we might take more care 
of our graves ; we might preserve our sick neighbours from 
the sound of the death-bell ; a single piece of ribbon or 
crape would surely be enough to guard us against the un- 
weeting inquiries of friends, while, in the rest of our clothes, 
we might adopt, by means of a ring or a watch-ribbon, 
some cheerful instead of gloomy recollection of the person 
we had lost, — a favourite colour, for instance, or device, — 
and thus contrive to balance a grief which we must feel, 
and which, indeed, in its proper associations, it would not 
be desirable to avoid. Rousseau died gazing on the setting 
sun, and was buried under green trees. Petrarch, who 
seemed born to complete and render glorious the idea of an 
author from first to last, was found dead in his study with 



196 ON DEATH AND BURIAL 

his head placidly resting on a book. What is there in 
deaths like these to make us look back with anguish, or to 
plunge into all sorts of gloominess and bad taste ? 

We know not whether it has ever struck any of our 
readers, but we seem to consider the relics of ancient taste, 
which we possess, as things of mere ornament, and forget 
that their uses may be in some measure preserved, so as to 
complete the idea of their beauty, and give them, as it were, 
a soul again. We place their urns and vases, for instance, 
about our apartments, but never think of putting anything 
in them ; yet when they are not absolutely too fragile, we 
might often do so, — fruit, flowers, — toilet utensils, — a 
hundred things, with a fine opportunity (to boot) of showing 
our taste in inscriptions. The Chinese, in the Citizen of the 
World, when he was shown the two large vases from his 
own country, was naturally amused to hear that they only 
served to fill up the room, and held no supply of tea in them 
as they did at home. A lady, a friend of ours, who shows 
in her countenance her origin from a country of taste, and 
who acts up to the promise of her countenance, is the only 
person, but one, whom we ever knew to turn antique 
ornament to account in this respect. She buried a favourite 
bird in a vase on her mantel-piece ; and there the little 
rogue lies, with more kind and tasteful associations about 
him, than the greatest dust in Christendom. The other 
instance is that of two urns of marble, which have been 
turned as much as possible to the original purposes of such 
vessels, by becoming the depository of locks of hair. A 
lock of hair is an actual relic of the dead, as much so, in 
its proportion, as ashes, and more lively and recalling than 
even those. It is the part of us that preserves vitality 
longest ; it is a clean and elegant substance : and it is 
especially connected with ideas of tenderness, in the cheek 
or the eyes about which it may have strayed, and the hand- 
ling we may have given it on the living head. The thoughts 



ON DEATH AND BURIAL 197 

connected with such relics time gradually releases from 
grief itself, and softens into tender enjoyment ; and we 
know that in the instance alluded to the possessor of those 
two little urns would no more consent to miss them from 
his study, than he would any other cheerful association that 
he could procure. It is a consideration, which he would not 
forego for a great deal, that the venerable and lovely dust 
to which they belonged lies in a village churchyard, and 
has left the most unfading part of it inclosed in graceful 
vessels. 




May-day is a word, which used to awaken in the minds of 
our ancestors all the ideas of youth, and verdure, and 
blossoming, and love ; and hilarity ; in short, the union of 
the two best things in the world, the love of nature, and 
the love of each other. It was the day, on which the 
arrival of the year at maturity was kept, like that of a 
blooming heiress. They caught her eye as she was 
coming, and sent up hundreds of songs of joy. 

Now the bright Morning Star, Day's harbinger. 
Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her 
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws 
The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose. 

Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire 

Mirth, and youth, and warm desire: 

Woods and groves are of thy dressing ; 

Hill and dale, doth boast thy blessing. 
Thus we salute thee with our early song, 
And welcome thee, and wish thee long. 

These songs were stopped by Milton's friends the Puritans, 
whom in his old age he differed with, most likely on these 
198 



MAY-DAY 199 

points among others. But till then, they appear to have 
been as old, all over Europe, as the existence of society. 
The Druids are said to have had festivals in honour of 
May. Our Teutonic ancestors had, undoubtedly ; and in 
the countries which had constituted the Western Roman 
Empire, Flora still saw thanks paid for her flowers, though 
her worship had gone away. 1 

The homage which was paid to the Month of Love and 
flowers, may be divided into two sorts, the general and the 
individual. The first consisted in going with others to 
gather May, and in joining in sports and games afterwards. 
On the first of the month, "the juvenile part of both 
sexes," says Bourne, in his Popular Antiquities, " were 
wont to rise a little after midnight and walk to some 
neighbouring wood, where they broke down branches from 
the trees, and adorned them with nosegays and crowns of 
flowers. When this was done, they returned with their 
booty about the rising of the sun, and made their doors and 
windows to triumph in the flowery spoil. The after part of 
the day was chiefly spent in dancing round a May-pole, 
which being placed in a convenient part of the village, 
stood there, as it were, consecrated to the Goddess of 
Flowers, without the least violation offered to it, in the 
whole circle of the year." Spenser, in his Shepherd's 
Calendar, has detailed the circumstances, in a style like a 
rustic dance. 

Younge folke now flocken in — every where 
To gather May-buskets 2 — and swelling brere ; 

1 The great May holiday observed over the West of Europe was 
known for centuries, up to a late period, under the name of the 
Belte, or Beltane. Such a number of etymologies, all perplexingly 
probable, have been found for this word, that we have been 
surprised to miss among them that of Bel-temps, the Fine Time or 
Season. Thus Printemps, the First Time, or Prime Season, is the 
Spring. 

2 Baskets — Boskets — Bushes — from Boschetti, Ital, 



200 MAY-DAY 

And home they hasten — the postes to dight, 
And all the kirk-pilours — eare day-light, 
With hawthorne buds — and sweet eglantine, 
And girlonds of roses — and soppes in wine. 
****** 
Sicker this morowe, no longer agoe. 
1 saw a shole of shepherds outgoe 
With singing, and shouting, and jolly chere ; 
Before them yode l a lustie tabrere 2 
That to the many a hornpipe played, 
Whereto they dauncen eche one with his mayd 
To see these folks make such jovisaunce, 
Made my heart after the pipe to daunce. 
Tho 3 to the greene wood they speeden hem all, 
To fetchen home May with their musicall ; 
And home they bringen, in a royall throne, 
Crowned as king; and his queen attone 4 
Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend 
A fayre fiocke of faeries, and a fresh bend 
Of lovely nymphs. O that I were there 
To helpen the ladies their May-bush beare. 

The day was passed in sociality and manly sports ; — in 
archery, and running, and pitching the bar, — in dancing, 
singing, playing music, acting Robin Hood and his company, 
and making a well-earned feast upon all the country dainties 
in season. It closed with an award of prizes. 

As I have seen the Lady of the May, 

Set in an arbour (on a holiday) 

Built by the Maypole, where the jocund swains 

Dance with the maidens to the bag-pipe's strains, 

When envious night commands them to be gone, 

Call for the merry youngsters one by one, 

And for their well performance soon disposes, 

To this a garland interwove with roses, 

To that a carved hook, or well-wrought scrip, 

Gracing another with her cherry lip ; 

1 Tode, Went. 2 Tabrere. a Tabourer. 

3 Tho, Then. 4 Attone, At once— With him. 



MAY-DAY 201 

To one her garter, to another then 
A handkerchief cast o'er and o'er again ; 
And none returneth empty, that hath spent 
His pains to fill their rural merriment. 1 

Among the gentry and at court the spirit of the same 
enjoyments took place, modified according to the taste or 
rank of the entertainers. The most universal amusement, 
agreeably to the general current in the veins, and the common 
participation of flesh and blood (for rank knows no distinc- 
tion of legs and knee-pans), was dancing. Contests of 
chivalry supplied the place of more rural gymnastics. But 
the most poetical and elaborate entertainment was the Mask. 
A certain flowery grace was sprinkled over all ; and the 
finest spirits of the time, though they showed both their 
manliness and wisdom in knowing how to raise the pleasures 
of the season to their height. Sir Philip Sydney, the idea 
of whom has come down to us as a personification of all the 
refinement of that age, is fondly recollected by Spenser in 
this character. 

His sports were faire, his joyance innocent, 
Sweet without soure, and honey without gall : 
And he himself seemed made for merriment, 
Merrily masking both in bowre and hall. 
There was no pleasure nor delightfull play, 
When Astrophel soever was away. 

For he could pipe, and daunce, and caroll sweet, 
Amongst the shepheards in their shearing feast ; 

1 Britannia's Patorals, by William Browne. Song the 4th. 
Browne, like his friend Wither, from whom we quoted a passage 
last week, wanted strength and the power of selection; though 
not to such an extent. He is however well worth reading by 
those who can expatiate over a pastoral subject, like a meadowy 
tract of country ; finding out the beautiful spots, and gratified, if 
not much delighted, with the rest. His genius, which was by 
no means destitute of the social part of passion, seems to have 
been turned almost wholly to description, by the beauties of his 
native county Devonshire. 



202 MAY-DAY 

As somer's larke that with her song doth greet 
The dawning day forth comming from the East. 
And layes of love he also could compose ; 
Thrice happie she, whom he to praise did choose. 

Astrophel, st. 5. 

Individual homage to the month of May consisted in 
paying respect to it though alone, and in plucking flowers 
and flowering boughs to adorn apartments with. 

This maiden, in a morn betime, 

Went forth when May was in the prime 

To get sweet setywall, 
The honey-suckle, the harlock, 
The lily, and the lady-smock, 

To deck her summer-hall. 

Drayton s Pastorals, Eclog. 4. 

But when morning pleasures are to be spoken of, the lovers 
of poetry who do not know Chaucer, are like those who do 
not know what it is to be up in the morning. He has left 
us two exquisite pictures of the solitary observance of May, 
in his Palamon and Arcite. They are the more curious, 
inasmuch as the actor in one is a lady, and in the other a 
knight. How far they owe any of their beauty to his 
original, the Theseide of Boccaccio^ we cannot say ; for we 
never had the happiness of meeting with that rare work. 
The Italians have so neglected it, that they have not only 
never given it a rifacimento or re-modelling, as in the 
instance of Boiardo's poem, but are almost as much un- 
acquainted with it, we believe, as foreign nations. Chaucer 
thought it worth his while to be both acquainted with it, 
and to make others so ; and we may venture to say, that 
we know of no Italian after Boccaccio's age who was so 
likely to understand him to the core, as his English admirer, 
Ariosto not excepted. Still, from what we have seen of 
Boccaccio's poetry, we can imagine the Theseide to have 
been too lax and long. If Chaucer's Palamon and Arcite 



MAY-DAY 



203 



be all that he thought proper to distil from it, it must have 
been greatly so ; for it was an epic. But at all events the 
essence is an exquisite one. The tree must have been a 
fine old enormity, from which such honey could be drawn. 
To begin, as in duty bound, with the lady. How she 
sparkles through the antiquity of the language, like a young 
beauty in an old hood ! 

Thus passeth yere by yere, and day by day, 
Till it felle ones in a morowe of May, 
That Emelie— 

But we will alter the spelling where we can, as in a former 
instance, merely to let the reader see what a notion is in his 
way, if he suffers the look of Chaucer's words to prevent 
his enjoying him. 

Thus passeth year by year, and day by day, 
Till it fell once, in a morrow of May, 
That Emily, that fairer was to seen 
Than is the lily upon his stalk green, 
And fresher than the May with flowers new, 
(For with the rosy colour strove her hue ; 
I n'ot which was the finer of them two) 
Ere it was day, as she was wont to do, 
She was arisen and all ready dight, 
For May will have no sluggardly a-night : 
The season pricketh every gentle heart, 
And maketh him out of his sleep to start, 
And saith " Arise, and do thine observance." 

This maketh Emily have remembrance 
To do honour to May, and for to rise. 
Yclothed was she, fresh for to devise: 
Her yellow hair was braided in a tress, 
Behind her back, a yarde l long I guess : 
And in the garden, at the sun uprist, 
She walketh up and down where as her list ; 
She gathereth flowers, party white and red 
To make a subtle garland for her head ; 



1 These additional syllables are to be read slightly, like the <r 
in French verse. 



2o 4 MAY-DAY 

And as an angel, heavenly she sung. 

The great tower, that was so thick and strong, 

Which of the castle was the chief dongeon, 

(Where as these knightes weren in prison, 

Of which I tolde you, and tellen shall) 

Was even joinant to the garden wall, 

There as this Emily had her playing. 

Bright was the sun, and clear that morwening — 

[How finely, to our ears at least, the second line of the 
couplet always rises up from this full stop at the first ! ] 

Bright was the sun, and clear that morwening, 
And Palamon, this woeful prisoner, 
As was his wont, by leave of his jailer, 
Was risen, and roamed in a chamber on high, 
in which he all the noble city sigh, 1 
And eke the garden, full of branches green, 
There as this fresh Emilia the sheen <2 
Was in her walk, and roamed up and down. 

Sir Walter Scott, in his edition of Dryden, says upon the 
passage before us, and Dryden's version of it, that "the 
modern must yield the palm to the ancient, in spite of the 
beauty of his versification." We quote from memory, but 
this is the substance of his words. For our parts, we agree 
with them, as to the consignment of the palm, but not as to 
the exception about the versification. With some allowance 
as to our present mode of accentuation, it appears to us to 
be touched with a finer sense of music even than Dryden's. 
It is more delicate, without any inferiority in strength, and 
still more various. 

But to our other portrait. It is as sparkling with young 
manhood, as the former is with a gentler freshness. What 
a burst of radiant joy is in the second couplet; what a 
vital quickness in the comparison of the horse, " starting as 
the fire ; " and what a native and happy ease in the 
conclusion ! 

1 Saw. 2 The shining. 



MAY-DAY 205 

The busy lark, the messenger of day, 
Saleweth. 1 in her song the morrow gray ; 
And fiery Phoebus riseth up so bright, 
That all the orient laugheth of the sight ; 
And with his stremes drieth in the greves 2 
The silver droppes hanging in the leaves ; 
And Arcite, that is in the court real 3 
With Theseus the squier principal, 
Is risen, and looketh on the merry day ; 
And for to do his observance to May, 
Rememb'ring on the point of his desire, 
He on the courser, starting as the fire, 
Is ridden to the fieldes him to play, 
Out of the court, were it a mile or tway : 
And to the grove, of which that I you told, 
By aventure his way 'gan to hold, 
To maken him a garland of the greves, 
Were it of woodbind or of hawthorn leaves, 
And loud he sung against the sunny sheen : 
" O May, with all thy flowers and thy green, 
Right welcome be thou, faire freshe May : 
I hope that I some green here getten may." 
And from his courser, with a lusty heart, 
Into the grove full hastily he start, 
And in the path he roamed up and down. 

The versification of this is not so striking as the other, but 
Dryden again falls short in the freshness and feeling of the 
sentiment. His lines are beautiful ; but they do not come 
home to us with so happy and cordial a face. Here they 
are. The word morning in the first line, as it is repeated 
in the second, we are bound to consider as a slip of the pen ; 
perhaps for mounting. 

The morning-lark, the messenger of day, 

Saluteth in her song the morning gray ; 

And soon the sun arose with beams so bright, 

That all the horizon laughed to see the joyous sight : 

He with his tepid rays the rose renews, 

And licks the drooping leaves and dries the dews ; 

1 Saluteth. a Groves. 3 Royal. 



206 MAY-DAY 

When Arcite left his bed, resolv'd to pay 

Observance to the month of merry May : 

Forth on his fiery steed betimes he rode, 

That scarcely prints the turf on which he trod : 

At ease he seemed, and prancing o'er the plains, 

Turned only to the grove his horse's reins, 

The grove 1 named before; and, lighted there, 

A woodbine garland sought to crown his hair : 

Then turned his face against the rising day, 

And raised his voice to welcome in the May : 

" For thee, sweet month, the groves green liveries wear, 

If not the first, the fairest of the year : 

For thee the Graces lead the dancing Hours, 

And Nature's ready pencil paints the flowers : 

When thy short reign is past, the feverish Sun 

The sultry tropic fears, and moves more slowly on. 

So may thy tender blossoms fear no blight, 

Nor goats with venom'd teeth thy tendrils bite, 

As thou shalt guide my wandering steps to find 

The fragrant greens I seek, my brows to bind." 

His vows address'd, within the grove he stray'd. 

How poor is this to Arcite's leaping from his courser 
"with a lusty heart ! " How inferior the common-place 
of the "fiery steed," which need not involve any actual 
notion in the writer's mind, to the courser " starting as the 
fire ; " — how inferior the turning his face to " the rising 
day" and raising his voice to the singing "loud against the 
sunny sheen ; " and lastly, the whole learned invocation 
and adjuration of May, about guiding his "wandering 
steps " and " so may thy tender blossoms " &c. to the call 
upon the " fair fresh May," ending with that simple, quick- 
hearted line, in which he hopes he shall get " some green 
here ; " a touch in the happiest vivacity ! Dryden's genius, 
for the most part, wanted faith in nature. It was too gross 
and sophisticate. There was as much difference between 
him and his original, as between a hot noon in perukes at 
St James's, and one of Chaucer's lounges on the grass, of 
a May-morning. 



MAY-DAY 207 

All this worship of May is over now. There is no 
issuing forth, in glad companies, to gather boughs ; no 
adorning of houses with "the flowery spoil;" no songs, 
no dances, no village sports and coronations, no courtly 
poetries, no sense and acknowledgment of the quiet presence 
of nature, in grove or glade. 

O dolce primavera, o fior novelli, 

O aure, o arboscelli, o fresche erbette, 

O piagge benedette ; o colli, o monti, 

O valli, o fiumi, ofonti, o verdi rivi, 

Palme lauri, ed olive, edere e mirti ; 

O gloriosi spiriti de gli boschi ; 

O Eco, o antri foschi, o chiare linfe, 

O faretrate ninfe, o agresti Pani, 

O Satiri e Silvani, o Fauni e Driadi, 

Naiadi ed Amadriadi, o Semidee, 

Oreadi e Napee, — or siete sole. — Satmazzaro. 

O thou delicious spring, O ye new flowers, 

O airs, O youngling bowers ; fresh thickening grass, 

And plains beneath heaven's face ; O hills and mountains, 

Valleys, and streams, and fountains; banks of green, 

Myrtles, and palms serene, ivies and bays ; 

And ye who warmed old lays, spirits o' the woods, 

Echoes, and solitudes, and lakes of light ; 

O quivered virgins bright, Pans rustical, 

Satyrs and Sylvans all, Dryads, and ye 

That up the mountains be ; and ye beneath 

In meadow or flowery heath, — ye are alone. 

Two hundred years ago, our ancestors used to delight in 
anticipating their May holidays. Bigotry came in, and 
frowned them away ; then Debauchery, and identified all 
pleasures with the town ; then Avarice, and we have ever 
since been mistaking the means for the end. 

Fortunately, it does not follow that we shall continue to 
do so. Commerce, while it thinks it is only exchanging 
commodities, is helping to diffuse knowledge. All other 
gains, — all selfish and extravagant systems of acquisition, 



208 MAY-DAY 

— tend to over-do themselves, and to topple down by their 
own undifTused magnitude. The world, as it learns other 
things, may learn not to confound the means with the end, 
or at least (to speak more philosophically), a really poor 
means with a really richer. The veriest cricket-player on 
a green has as sufficient a quantity of excitement as a fund- 
holder or a partisan ; and health, and spirits, and manliness 
to boot. Knowledge may go on ; must do so, from 
necessity; and should do so, for the ends we speak of; 
but knowledge, so far from being incompatible with simpli- 
city of pleasures, is the quickest to perceive its wealth. 
Chaucer would lie for hours looking at the daisies. Scipio 
and Laslius could amuse themselves with making ducks and 
drakes on the water. Epaminondas, the greatest of all the 
active spirits of Greece, was a flute-player and dancer. 
Alfred the Great could act the whole part of a minstrel. 
Epicurus taught the riches of temperance and intellectual 
pleasure in a garden. The other philosophers of his 
country walked between heaven and earth in the colloquial 
bowers of Academus ; and «' the wisest heart of Solomon," 
who found everything vain because he was a king, has left 
us panegyrics on the Spring and the " voice of the turtle," 
because he was a poet, a lover, and a wise man. 



- - 




tHflrSBHEL 


St : ^ai 


n 



COACHES 



According to the opinion commonly entertained respecting 
an author's want of riches, it may be allowed us to say, 
that we retain from childhood a considerable notion of " a 
ride in a coach." Nor do we hesitate to confess, that by 
coach, we especially mean a hired one ; from the equivocal 
dignity of the post-chaise, down to that despised old cast- 
away, the hackney. 

It is true, that the carriage, as it is indifferently called 
(as if nothing less genteel could carry any one), is a more 
decided thing than the chaise ; it may be swifter even than 
the mail, leaves the stage at a still greater distance in every 
respect, and (forgetting what it may come to itself) darts by 
the poor old lumbering hackney with immeasurable contempt. 
It rolls with a prouder ease than any other vehicle. It is 
full of cushions and comfort ; elegantly coloured inside and 
out ; rich, yet neat ; light and rapid, yet substantial. The 
horses seem proud to draw it. The fat and fair-wigged 
coachman " lends his sounding lash," his arm only in action, 
and that but little, his body well set with its own weight. 
The footman, in the pride of his nonchalance, holding by 
the straps behind, and glancing down sideways betwixt his 
cocked-hat and neckcloth, stands swinging from east to 
west upon his springy toes. The horses rush along amidst 

o 2 °9 



2to COACHES 

their glancing harness. Spotted dogs leap about them, 
barking with a princely superfluity of noise. The hammer- 
cloth trembles through all its fringe. The paint flashes in 
the sun. We, contemptuous of everything less convenient, 
bow backwards and forwards with a certain iudifFerent air 
of gentility, infinitely predominant. Suddenly, with a happy 
mixture of turbulence and truth, the carriage dashes up by 
the curb-stone to the very point desired, and stops with a 
lordly wilfulness of decision. The coachman looks as if 
nothing had happened. The footman is down in an instant ; 
the knocker reverberates into the farthest corner of the 
house ; doors, both carriage and house, are open ; — we 
descend, casting a matter-of-course eye at the by-standers ; 
and the moment we touch the pavement, the vehicle, as if 
conscious of what it has carried, and relieved from the 
weight of our importance, recovers from its sidelong in- 
clination with a jerk, tossing and panting, as it were, for 
very breath, like the proud heads of the horses. 

All this, it must be owned, is very pretty ; but it is also 
gouty and superfluous. It is too convenient, — too exacting, 
— too exclusive. We must get too much for it, and lose 
too much by it. Its plenty, as Ovid says, makes us poor. 
We neither have it in the republic of letters, nor would 
desire it in any less Jacobinical state. Horses, as many as 
you please, provided men have enough to eat ; — hired 
coaches, a reasonable number : — but health and good- 
humour at all events. 

Gigs and curricles are things less objectionable, because 
they cannot be so relied upon as substitutes for exercise. 
Our taste in them, we must confess, is not genuine. How 
shall we own it ? We like to be driven, instead of drive ; 
— to read or look about us, instead of keeping watch on a 
horse's head. We have.no relish even for vehicles of this 
description that are not safe. Danger is a good thing for 
giving a fillip to a man's ideas ; but even danger, to us, 



COACHES 211 

must come recommended by something useful. We have 
no ambition to have Tandem written on our tombstone. 

The prettiest of these vehicles is the curricle, which is 
also the safest. There is something worth looking at in the 
pair of horses, with that sparkling pole of steel laid across 
them. It is like a bar of music, comprising their harmonious 
course. But to us, even gigs are but a sort of unsuccessful 
run at gentility. The driver, to all intents and purposes, 
had better be on the horse. Horseback is the noblest way 
of being carried in the world. It is cheaper than any other 
mode of riding ; it is common to all ranks ; and it is 
manly, graceful, and healthy. The handsomest qjixture 
of danger with dignity, in the shape of a carriage, was the 
tall phaeton with its yellow wings. We remember look- 
ing up to it with respect in our childhood, partly for its 
loftiness, partly for its name, and partly for the show it 
makes in the prints to novels of that period. The most 
gallant figure which modern driving ever cut, was in the 
person of a late Duke of Hamilton ; of whom we have 
read or heard somewhere, that he used to dash round the 
streets of Rome, with his horses panting, and his hounds 
barking about his phaeton, to the equal fright and admiration 
of the Masters of the World, who were accustomed to 
witness nothing higher than a lumbering old coach, or a 
cardinal on a mule. 

A post-chaise involves the idea of travelling, which in 
the company of those we love is home in motion. The 
smooth ruuning along the road, the fresh air, the variety of 
scene, the leafy roads, the bursting prospects, the clatter 
through a town, the gaping gaze of a village, the hearty 
appetite, the leisure (your chaise waiting only upon your own 
movements), even the little contradictions to home-comfort 
and the expedients upon which they set us, all put the 
animal spirits at work, and throw a novelty over the road of 
life. If anything could grind us young again, it would be 



212 COACHES 

the wheels of a post-chaise. The only monotonous sight 
is the perpetual up-and-down movement of the postillion, 
who, we wish exceedingly, could take a chair. His 
occasional retreat to the bar which occupies the place of a 
box, and his affecting to sit upon it, only remind us of its 
exquisite want of accommodation. But some have given 
the bar, lately, a surreptitious squeeze in the middle, and 
flattened it a little into something obliquely resembling an 
inconvenient seat. 

If we are to believe the merry Columbus of Down-Hall, 
calashes, now almost obsolete for any purpose, used to be 
hired for travelling occasions a hundred years back ; but he 
preferred a chariot ; and neither was good. Yet see how 
pleasantly good-humour rides over its inconveniences. 

Then answer'd 'Squire Morley, " Pray get a calash, 
That in summer may burn, and in winter may splash ; 
I love dirt and dust ; and 'tis always my pleasure 
To take with me much of the soil that I measure." 

But Matthew thought better ; for Matthew thought right, 
And hired a chariot so trim and so tight, 
That extremes both of winter and summer might pass; 
For one window was canvass, the other was glass. 

"Draw up," quoth friend Matthew ; "Pull down," quoth 

friend John ; 
" We shall be both hotter and colder anon." 
Thus, talking and scolding, they forward did speed ; 
And Ralpho paced by under Newman the Swede. 

Into an old inn did this equipage roll, 
At a town they call Hodson, the sign of the Bull ; 
Near a nymph with an urn that divides the highway, 
And into a puddle throws mother of tea. 

" Come here, my sweet landlady, pray how d'ye do ? 
Where is Cicely so cleanly, and Prudence, and Sue? 
And where is the widow that dwelt here below ? 
And the hostler that sung about eight years ago? 



COACHES i\% 

And where is your sister, so mild and so dear, 
Whose voice to her maids like a trumpet was clear? " 
" By my troth," she replies, " you grow younger, I think. : 
And pray, Sir, what wine does the gentleman drink? 

" Why not let me die, Sir, or live upon trust, 

If I know to which question to answer you first: 

Why, things, since I saw you, most strangely have varied ; 

The hostler is hang'd, and the widow is married. 

"And Prue left a child for the parish to nurse, 
And Cicely went off with a gentleman's purse; 
And as to my sister, so mild and so dear, 
She has lain in the churchyard full many a year." 

" Well ; peace to her ashes ! What signifies grief? 
She roasted red veal, and she powder'd lean beef: 
Full nicely she knew to cook up a fine dish ; 
For tough were her pullets, and tender her fish." 

— Prior. 

This quotation reminds us of a little poem by the same 
author, entitled the Secretary, which, as it is short, and runs 
upon chaise-wheels, and seems to have slipped the notice it 
deserves, we will do ourselves the pleasure of adding. It 
was written when he was Secretary of Embassy at the 
Hague, where he seems to have edified the Dutch with his 
insisting upon enjoying himself. The astonishment with 
which the good Hollander and his wife look up to him as 
he rides, and the touch of yawning dialect at the end, are 
extremely pleasant. 

While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix, 

And in one day atone for the business of six, 

In a little Dutch chaise on a Saturday night, 

On my left hand my Horace, a nymph on my right : 

No Memoirs to compose, and no Post-boy to move, 

That on Sunday may hinder the softness of love ; 

For her, neither visits, nor parties at tea, 

Nor the long-winded cant of a dull Refugee : 

This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine, — 

To good or ill-fortune the third we resign : 



2i 4 COACHES 

Thus scorning the world and superior to fate, 

I drive on my car in processional state. 

So with Phia through Athens Pisistratus rode ; 

Men thought her Minerva, and him a new god. 

But why should 1 stories of Athens rehearse, 

Where people knew love, and were partial to verse ? 

Since none can with justice my pleasures oppose, 

In Holland half drowned in interest and prose? 

By Greece and past ages what need I be tried, 

When the Hague and the present are both on my side ? 

And is it enough for the joys of the day, 

To think what Anacreon or Sappho would say ? 

When good Vandergoes, and his provident vrozv, 

As they gaze on my triumph, do freely allow, 

That, search all the province, you'll find no man dar is 

So blest as the Englishen Heer Secretar' is." 

If Prior had been living now, he would have found the 
greatest want of travelling accommodation in a country for . 
whose more serious wants we have to answer, without having 
her wit to help us to an excuse. There is a story told of an 
Irish post-chaise, the occupier of which, without quitting it, 
had to take to his heels. It was going down hill as fast as 
wind and the impossibility of stopping could make it, when 
the foot passengers observed a couple of legs underneath, 
emulating, with all their might, the rapidity of the wheels. 
The bottom had come out ; and the gentleman was obliged 
to run for his life. 

We must relate another anecdote of an Irish post-chaise, 
merely to show the natural tendencies of the people to be 
lawless in self-defence. A friend of ours, 1 who was travel- 
ling among them, used to have this proposition put to him 
by the postillion whenever he approached a turnpike. " Plase 
your honour, will I drive at the pike ? " The pike hung 
loosely across the road. Luckily, the rider happened to be 
of as lawless a turn for justice as the driver, so the answer 
was always a cordial one : — " Oh yes — drive at the pike." 

1 Mr Shelley. 



COACHES 215 

The pike made way accordingly ; and in a minute or two, 
the gate people were heard and seen, screaming in vain after 
the illegal charioteers. 

Fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus. — Virgil. 

The driver's borne beyond their swearing, 
And the post-chaise is hard of hearing. 

As to following them, nobody in Ireland thinks of moving 
too much, legal or illegal. 

The pleasure to be had in a mail-coach is not so much at 
one's command, as that in a post-chaise. There is generally 
too little room in it, and too much hurry out of it. The 
company must not lounge over their breakfast, even if they 
are all agreed. It is an understood thing that they are to 
be uncomfortably punctual. They must get in at seven 
o'clock, though they are all going upon business they do 
not like or care about, or will have to wait till nine before 
they can do anything. Some persons know how to manage 
this haste, and breakfast and dine in the cracking of a whip. 
They stick with their fork, they joint, they sliver, they bolt. 
Legs and wings vanish before them like a dragon's before a 
knight-errant. But if one is not a clergyman or a regular 
jolly fellow, one has no chance this way. To be diffident 
or polite is fatal. It is a merit easily acknowledged, and 
as quickly set aside. At last you begin upon a leg, and 
are called off. 

A very troublesome degree of science is necessary for 
being well settled in the coach. We remember travel- 
ling in our youth, upon the north road with an orthodox 
elderly gentleman of venerable peruke, who talked much 
with a grave-looking young man about universities, and 
won our inexperienced heart with a notion that he was 
deep in Horace and Virgil. He was deeper in his wig. 
Towards evening, as he seemed restless, we asked with 
much diffidence whether a change, even for the worse, 



216 COACHES 

might not relieve him ; for we were riding backwards, 
and thought that all elderly people disliked that way. 
He insinuated the very objection ; so we recoiled from 
asking him again. In a minute or two, however, he 
insisted that we were uneasy ourselves, and that he must 
relieve us for our own sake. We protested as filially as 
possible against this ; but at last, out of mere shame of 
disputing the point with so benevolent an elder, we changed 
seats with him. After an interval of bland meditation, we 
found the evening sun full in our face. — His new comfort 
set him dozing ; and every now and then he jerked his 
wig in our eyes, till we had the pleasure of seeing him 
take out a nightcap and look very ghastly. — The same 
person, and his serious young companion, tricked us out 
of a good bed we happened to get at the inn. 

The greatest peculiarity attending a mail-coach arises 
from its travelling at night. The gradual decline of 
talk, the incipient snore, the rustling and shifting of 
legs and nightcaps, the cessation of other noises on the 
road — the sound of the wind or rain, of the moist 
circuit of the wheels, and of the time-beating tread of 
the horses — all dispose the traveller, who cannot sleep, 
to a double sense of the little that is left him to observe. 
The coach stops, the door opens, a rush of cold air 
announces the demands and merits of the guard, who is 
taking his leave, and is anxious to remember us. The 
door is clapped to again ; the sound of everything out- 
side becomes dim ; and voices are heard knocking up 
the people of the inn, and answered by issuing yawns 
and excuses. Wooden shoes clog heavily about. The 
horses' mouths are heard, swilling up the water out of 
tubs. All is still again, and someone in the coach takes 
a long breath. The driver mounts, and we resume our 
way. It happens that we can sleep anywhere except in 
a mail-coach ; so that we hate to see a prudent, warm, 



COACHES 217 

old fellow, who has been eating our fowls and intercept- 
ing our toast, put on his nightcap in order to settle himself 
till morning. We rejoice in the digs that his neighbour's 
elbow gives him, and hail the long-legged traveller that 
sits opposite. A passenger of our wakeful description 
must try to content himself with listening to .the sounds 
above mentioned ; or thinking of his friends ; or turning 
verses, as Sir Richard Blackmore did, " to the rumbling 
of his coach's wheels." 

The stage-coach is a great and unpretending accom- 
modation. It is a chief substitute, notwithstanding all its 
eighteen-penny and two-and-sixpenny temptations, for 
keeping a carriage or a horse ; and we really think, in 
spite of its gossiping, is no mean help to village liberality ; 
for its passengers are so mixed, so often varied, so little yet 
so much together, so compelled to accommodate, so willing 
to pass a short time pleasantly, and so liable to the criticism 
of strangers, that it is hard if they do not get a habit of 
speaking, or even thinking more kindly of one another than 
if they mingled less often, or under other circumstances. 
The old and infirm are treated with reverence ; the ailing 
sympathised with ; the healthy congratulated ; the rich not 
distinguished ; the poor well met ; the young, with their 
faces conscious of ride, patronised, and allowed to be extra. 
Even the fiery, nay the fat, learn to bear with each other ; 
and if some high thoughted persons will talk now and then 
of their great acquaintances, or their preference of a carriage, 
there is an instinct which tells the rest, that they would not 
make such appeals to their good opinion, if they valued it so 
little as might be supposed. Stoppings and dust are not 
pleasant, but the latter may be had on grander occasions ; 
and if any one is so unlucky as never to keep another stop- 
ping himself, he must be content with the superiority of his 
virtue. 

The mail or stage-coachman, upon the whole, is no in- 



ai8 COACHES 

human mass of great-coat, gruffness, civility, and old boots. 
The latter is the politer, from the smaller range of acquaint- 
ance, and his necessity for preserving them. His face is 
red, and his voice rough, by the same process of drink and 
catarrh. He has a silver watch with a steel chain, and 
plenty of loose silver in his pocket, mixed with halfpence. 
He serves the houses he goes by for a clock. He takes a 
glass at every alehouse ; for thirst, when it is dry, and for 
warmth when it is wet. He likes to show the judicious 
reach of his whip, by twigging a dog or a goose on the 
road, or children that get in the way. His tenderness to 
descending old ladies is particular. He touches his hat to 
Mr Smith. He gives "the young woman" a ride, and 
lends her his box-coat in the rain. His liberality in impart- 
ing his knowledge to any one that has the good fortune to 
ride on the box with him, is a happy mixture of deference, 
conscious possession, and familiarity. His information 
chiefly lies in the occupancy of houses on the road, prize- 
lighters, Bow Street runners and accidents. He concludes 
that you know Dick Sams, or Old Joey, and proceeds to 
relate some of the stories that relish his pot and tobacco in 
the evening. If any of the four-in-hand gentry go by, he 
shakes his head, and thinks they might find something 
better to do. His contempt for them is founded on 
modesty. He tells you that his off-hand horse is as pretty 
a goer as ever was, but that Kitty — " Yeah, now there, 
Kitty, can't you be still ? Kitty's a devil, Sir, for all you 
wouldn't think it." He knows that the boys on the road 
admire him, and gives the horses an indifferent lash with 
his whip as they go by. If you wish to know what rain 
and dust can do, you should look at his old hat. There is 
an indescribably placid and paternal look in the position of 
his corduroy knees and old top-boots on the foot-board, 
with their pointed toes and never-cleaned soles. His beau- 
ideal of appearance is a frock-coat, with mother-o'-pearl 



COACHES 221 

buttons, a stripped yellow waistcoat, and a flower in his 
mouth. 

" But all our praises why for Charles and Robert? 
Rise, honest Mews, and sing the classic Bobart." 

Is the quadrijugal virtue of that learned person still extant ? 
That Olympic and Baccalaureated charioteer ? — That best 
educated and most erudite of coachmen, of whom Dominie 
Sampson is alone worthy to speak ? That singular punning 
and driving commentary on the Sunt quos curr'iculo collegisse ? 
In short, the worthy and agreeable Mr Bobart, Bachelor of 
Arts, who drove the Oxford stage some years ago, capped 
verses and the front of his hat with equal dexterity, and 
read Horace over his brandy-and-water of an evening ? 
We had once the pleasure of being beaten by him in that 
capital art, he having brought up against us an unusual 
number of those cross-armed letters, as puzzling to verse- 
cappers as iron-cats unto cavalry,- ycleped X's ; which said 
warfare he was pleased to call to mind in after-times, unto 
divers of our comrades. The modest and natural greatness 
with which he used to say " Yait " to his horses, and then 
turn round with his rosy gills, and an eye like a fish, and give 
out the required verse, can never pass away from us, as long 
as verses or horses run. 

Of the hackney-coach we cannot make as short work, 
as many persons like to make of it in reality. Perhaps it 
is partly a sense of the contempt it undergoes, which in- 
duces us to endeavour to make the best of it. But it has 
its merits, as we shall show presently. In the account of 
its demerits, we have been anticipated by a new, and we are 
sorry to say a very good, poetess, of the name of Lucy 

V L , who has favoured us with a sight of a 

manuscript poem, 1 in which they are related with great 
nicety and sensitiveness. 

1 By Mr Keats. The manuscript purports to have been written 
by a Miss Lucy Vaughan Lloyd. 



222 COACHES 

Reader. What, Sir, sorry to say that a lady is a good 
poetess ? 

Indicator. Only inasmuch, Madam, as the lady gives 
such authority to the anti- social view of this subject, and 
will not agree with us as to the beatitude of the hackney- 
coach. — But hold: — upon turning to the manuscript again, 
we find that the objections are put into the mouth of a dandy 
courtier. This makes a great difference. The hackney 
resumes all which it had lost in the good graces of the fair 
authoress. The only wonder is, how the courtier could talk 
so well. Here is the passage. 

Eban, untempted by the Pastry-cooks, 
(Of Pastry he got store within the Palace), 
With hasty steps, wrapp'd cloak, and solemn looks, 
Incognito upon his errand sallies, 
His smelling-bottle ready for the alleys; 
He pass'd the Hurdy-gurdies with disdain, 
Vowing he'd have them sent on board the galleys : 
Just as he made his vow, it 'gan to rain, 
Therefore he call'd a coach, and bade it drive amain. 

"Ill pull the string," said he, and further said, 
" Polluted Jarvey 1 Ah, thou filthy hack ! 
Whose strings of life are all dried up and dead, 
Whose linsey-wolsey lining hangs all slack, 
Whose rug is straw, whose wholeness is a crack ; 
And evermore thy steps go clatter-clitter ; 
Whose glass once up can never be got back, 
Who prov'st, with jolting arguments and bitter, 
That 'tis of vile no-use to travel in a litter. 

"Thou inconvenience! thou hungry crop 
For all corn ! thou snail creeper to and fro, 
Who while thou goest ever seem'st to stop, 
And fiddle-faddle standest while you go ; 
I' the morning, freighted with a weight of woe, 
Unto some Lazar-house thou journiest, 
And in the evening tak'st a double row 
Of dowdies, for some dance or party drest, 
Besides the goods meanwhile thou movest east and west. 



COACHES 223 

" By thy ungallant bearing and sad mien, 
An inch appears tbe utmost thou couldst budge ; 
Yet at the slightest nod, or hint, or sign, 
Round to the curb-stone patient dost thou trudge, 
School'd in a beckon, learned in a nudge ; 
A dull-eyed Argus watching for a fare ; 
Quiet and plodding, thou dost bear no grudge 
To whisking Tilburies or Phaetons rare, 
Curricles, or Mail-coaches, swift beyond compare." 

Philosophising thus, he pull'd the check, 
And bade the coachman wheel to such a street ; 
Who turning much his body, more his neck, 
Louted full low, and hoarsely did him greet. 

The tact here is so nice, of the infirmities which are but too 
likely to beset our poor old friend, that we should only spoil 
it to say more. To pass then to the merits. 

One of the greatest helps to a sense of merit in other 
things, is a consciousness of one's own wants. Do you 
despise a hackney-coach ? Get tired ; get old ; get young 
again. Lay down your carriage, or make it less un- 
easily too easy. Have to stand up half an hour, out of a 
storm, under a gateway. Be ill, and wish to visit a friend 
who is worse. Fall in love, and want to sit next your 
mistress. Or if all this will not do, fall in a cellar. 

Ben Jonson, in a fit of indignation at the niggardliness of 
James the First, exclaimed, "He despises me, I suppose, 
because I live in an alley : — tell him his soul lives in an 
alley." We think we see a hackney-coach moved out of 
its ordinary patience, and hear it say, " You there, who sit 
looking so scornfully at me out of your carriages, are your- 
self the thing you take me for. Your understanding is a 
hackney-coach. It is lumbering, rickety, and at a stand. 
When it moves, it is drawn by things like itself. It is at 
once the most stationary and the most servile of common- 
places. And when a good thing is put into it, it does not 
know it." 



224 COACHES 

But it is difficult to imagine a hackney-coach under so 
irritable an aspect. Hogarth has drawn a set of hats or wigs 
with countenances of their own. We have noticed the 
same thing in the faces of houses ; and it sometimes gets in 
one's way in a landscape-painting, with the outlines of the 
rocks and trees. A friend tells us, that the hackney-coach 
has its countenance, with gesticulation besides : and now he 
has pointed it out, we can easily fancy it. Some of them 
looked chucked under the chin, some nodding, some coming 
at you sideways. We shall never find it easy, however, to 
fancy the irritable aspect above mentioned. A hackney- 
coach always appeared to us the most quiescent of moveables. 
Its horses and it, slumbering on a stand, are an emblem of 
all the patience in creation, animate and inanimate. The 
submission with which the coach takes every variety of the 
weather, dust, rain, and wind, never moving but when some 
eddying blast makes its old body shiver, is only surpassed 
by the vital patience of the horses. Can anything better 
illustrate the poet's line about 

— Years that bring the philosophic mind, 

than the still-hung head, the dim indifferent eye, the dragged 
and blunt-cornered mouth, and the gaunt imbecility of body 
dropping its weight on three tired legs in order to give 
repose to the lame one ? When it has blinkers on, they 
seem to be shutting up its eyes for death, like the windows 
of a house. Fatigue and the habit of suffering have become 
as natural to the creature as- the bit to its mouth. Once in 
half an hour it moves the position of its leg, or shakes its 
drooping ears. The whip makes it go, more from habit 
than from pain. Its coat has become almost callous to minor 
stings. The blind and staggering fly in autumn might come 
to die against its cheek. 

Of a pair of hackney-coach horses, one so much resembles 
the other that it seems unnecessary for them to compare 



COACHES 227 

notes. They have that within them, which is beyond the 
comparative. They no longer bend their heads towards 
each other, as they go. They stand together as if uncon- 
scious of one another's company. But they are not. An 
old horse misses his companion, like an old man. The 
presence of an associate, who has gone through pain and 
suffering with us, need not say anything. It is talk, and 
memory, and everything. Something of this it may be to 
our old friends in harness. What are they thinking of, 
while they stand motionless in the rain ? Do they remem- 
ber ? Do they dream ? Do they still, unperplexed as their 
old blood is by too many foods, receive a pleasure from the 
elements ; a dull refreshment from the air and sun ? Have 
they yet a palate for the hay which they pull so feebly ? or for 
the rarer grain, which induces them to perform their only 
voluntary gesture of any vivacity, and toss up the bags that 
are fastened on their mouths to get at its shallow feast. 

If the old horse were gifted with memory (and who shall 
say he is not, in one thing as well as another?), it might 
be at once the most melancholy and pleasantest faculty he 
has ; for the commonest hack has probably been a hunter or 
racer ; has had his days of lustre and enjoyment; has darted 
along the course, and scoured the pasture ; has carried his 
master proudly, or his lady gently ; has pranced, has 
galloped, has neighed aloud, has dared, has forded, has 
spurned at mastery, has graced it and made it proud, has 
rejoiced the eye, has been crowded to as an actor, has been 
all instinct with life and quickness, has had his very fear ad- 
mired as courage, and been sat upon by valour as its chosen 
seat. 

" His ears up-prick'd ; his braided hanging mane 
Upon his compass'd crest now stands on end ; 
His nostrils drink the air ; and forth again, 
As from a furnace, vapours doth he send ; 

His eye, which scornfully glistens like fire, 
Shows his hot courage and his high desire. 



228 COACHES 

Sometimes he trots as if he told the steps, 

With gentle majesty, and modest pride; 

Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps, 

As who would say, lo ! thus my strength is tried, 

And thus I do to captivate the eye 

Of the fair breeder that is standing by. 

What recketh he his rider's angry stir, 

His flattering holla, or his Stand, I say ? 

What cares he now for curb, or pricking spur ? 

For rich caparisons, or trappings gay ? 

He sees his love, and nothing else he sees, 
For nothing else with his proud sight agrees. 

Look, when a painter would surpass the life, 

In limning out a well proportion'd steed, 

His art with nature's workmanship at strife, 

As if the dead the living should exceed ; 

So did this horse excel a common one, 

In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone. 

Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlock shag and long, 
Broad breast, full eyes, small head, and nostril wide; 
High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong; 
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide; 

Look, what a horse should have, he did not lack, 

Save a proud rider on so proud a back." 

Alas ! his only riders now are the rain and a sordid har- 
ness ! The least utterance of the wretchedest voice makes 
him stop and become a fixture. His loves were in exist- 
ence at the time the old sign, fifty miles hence, was painted. 
His nostrils drink nothing but what they cannot help, — 
the water out of an old tub. Not all the hounds in the 
world could make his ears attain any eminence. His mane 
is scratchy and lax. The same great poet who wrote the 
triumphal verses for him and his loves, has written their 
living epitaph : — 

" The poor jades 
Lob down their heads, dropping the hide and hips, 
The gum down roping from their pale dead eyes ; 



COACHES 229 

And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit 
Lies foul with chew'd grass, still and motionless." 

K. Hairy V. Act 4. 

There is a song called the High-mettled Racer, describing 
the progress of a favourite horse's life, from its time of 
vigour and glory, down to its furnishing food for the dogs. 
It is not as good as Shakspeare ; but it will do, to those 
who are half as kind as he. We defy anybody to read that 
song or be in the habit of singing it or hearing it sung, and 
treat horses as they are sometimes treated. So much good 
may an author do, who is in earnest, and does not go in a 
pedantic way to work. We will not say that Plutarch's good- 
natured observation about taking care of one's old horse did 
more for that class of retired servants than all the graver lessons 
of philosophy. For it is philosophy which first sets people 
thinking ; and then some of them put it in a more popular 
shape. But we will venture to say, that Plutarch's observa- 
tion saved many a steed of antiquity a superfluous thump ; 
and in this respect, the author of the High-mettled Racer 
(Mr Dibdin we believe, no mean man in his way) may 
stand by the side of the old illustrious biographer. Next 
to ancient causes, to the inevitable progress of events, and 
to the practical part of Christianity (which persons, the 
most accused of irreligion, have preserved like a glorious 
infant, through ages of blood and fire) the kindliness of 
modern philosophy is more immediately owing to the great 
national writers of Europe, in whose schools we have been 
children : — to Voltaire in France, and Shakspeare in 
England. Shakspeare, in his time, obliquely pleaded the 
cause of the Jew, and got him set on a common level with 
humanity. The Jew has since been not only allowed to 
be human, but some have undertaken to show him as the 
" best good Christian though he knows it not." We 
shall not dispute the title with him, nor with the other 
worshippers of Mammon, who force him to the same 



230 COACHES 

shrine. We allow, as things go in that quarter, that the 
Jew is as great a Christian as his neighbour, and his neigh- 
bour as great a Jew as he. There is neither love nor 
money lost between them. But at all events, the Jew is a 
man ; and with Shakspeare's assistance, the time has 
arrived, when we can afford to acknowledge the horse for 
a fellow-creature, and treat him as one. We may say for 
him, upon the same grounds and to the same purpose, as 
Shakspeare said for the Israelite, " Hath not a horse 
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, hurt with 
the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by 
the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and 
summer, as a Christian is ? " Oh — but some are always at 
hand to cry out, — it would be effeminate to think too much 
of these things! — Alas! we have no notion of asking the 
gentlemen to think too much of anything. If they will 
think at all, it will be a great gain. As to effeminacy (if 
we must use that ungallant and partial word, for want of a 
better) it is cruelty that is effeminate. It is selfishness 
that is effeminate. Anything is effeminate, which would 
get an excitement, or save a proper and manly trouble, at 
the undue expense of another. — How does the case stand 
then between those who ill-treat their horses, and those 
who spare them ? 

To return to the coach. Imagine a fine coach and pair, 
which are standing at the door of a house, in all the pride 
of their strength and beauty, converted into what they may 
both become, a hackney, and its old shamblers. Such is 
one of the meditations of the philosophic eighteenpenny 
rider. A hackney-coach has often the arms of nobility on 
it. As we are going to get into it, we catch a glimpse of 
the faded lustre of an earl's or marquis's coronet, and think 
how many light or proud hearts have ascended those now 
ricketty steps. In this coach perhaps an elderly lady once 
rode to her wedding, a blooming and blushing girl. Her 



COACHES 231 

mother and sister were on each side of her ; the bridegroom 
opposite in a blossom-coloured coat. They talk of every- 
thing in the world of which they are not thinking. The 
sister was never prouder of her. The mother v/ith difficulty 
represses her own pride and tears. The bride, thinking he 
is looking at her, casts down her eyes, pensive in her joy. 
The bridegroom is at once the proudest, and the humblest, 
and the happiest man in the world — For our parts, we sit in 
a corner, and are in love with the sister. We dream she 
is going to speak to us in answer to some indifferent ques- 
tion, when a hoarse voice comes in at the front window, 
and says " Whereabouts, Sir ? " 

And grief has consecrated thee, thou reverend dilapida- 
tion, as well as joy ! Thou hast carried unwilling, as well 
as willing hearts ; hearts, that have thought the slowest of 
thy paces too fast ; faces that have sat back in a corner of 
thee, to hide their tears from the very thought of being 
seen. In thee the destitute have been taken to the poor- 
house, and the wounded and sick to the hospital ; and 
many an arm has been round many an insensible waist. 
Into thee the friend or the lover has hurried, in a passion 
of tears, to lament his loss. In thee he has hastened to 
condole the dying or the wretched. In thee the father, or 
mother, or the older kinswoman, more patient in her years, 
has taken the little child to the grave, the human jewel 
that must be parted with. 

But joy appears in thee again, like the look-in of the 
sunshine. If the lover has gone in thee unwillingly, he 
has also gone willingly. How many friends hast thou not 
carried to merry-meetings ! How many young parties to the 
play ! How many children, whose faces thou hast turned 
in an instant from the extremity of lachrymose weariness to 
that of staring delight. Thou hast contained as many dif- 
ferent passions in thee as a human heart ; and for the 
sake of the human heart, old body, thou art venerable. 



232 COACHES 

Thou shalt be as respectable as a reduced old gentleman, 
whose very slovenliness is pathetic. Thou shalt be made 
gay, as he is over a younger and richer table, and thou shalt 
be still more touching for the gaiety. 

We wish the hackney-coachman were as interesting a 
machine as either his coach or horses ; but it must be owned, 
that of all the driving species he is the least agreeable speci- 
men. This is partly to be attributed to the life which has 
most probably put him into his situation ; partly to his want 
of outside passengers to cultivate his gentility ; and partly 
to the disputable nature of his fare, which always leads him 
to be lying and cheating. The waterman of the stand, who 
beats him in sordidness of appearance, is more respectable. 
He is less of a vagabond, and cannot cheat you. Nor is 
the hackney-coachman only disagreeable in himself, but, 
like Falstaff reversed, the cause of disagreeableness in others; 
for he sets people upon disputing with him in pettiness and 
ill-temper. He induces the mercenary to be violent, and 
the violent to seem mercenary. A man whom you took 
for a pleasant laughing fellow, shall all of a sudden put on an 
irritable look of calculation, and vow that he will be charged 
with a constable, rather than pay the sixpence. Even fair 
woman shall waive her all-conquering softness, and sound 
a shrill trumpet in reprobation of the extortionate charioteer, 
whom, if she were a man, she says, she would expose. 
Being a woman, then, let her not expose herself. Oh, but 
it is intolerable to be so imposed upon ! Let the lady, then, 
get a pocket-book, if she must, with the hackney-coach fares 
in it ; or a pain in the legs, rather than the temper ; or, above 
all, let her get wiser, and have an understanding that can 
dispense with the good opinion of the hackney-coachman. 
Does she think that her rosy lips were made to grow pale 
about two-and-sixpence ; or that the expression of them 
will ever be like her cousin Fanny's, if she goes on ? 

The stage-coachman likes the boys on the road, because 



COACHES 233 

he knows they admire him. The hackney-coachman knows 
that they cannot admire him, and that they can get up 
behind his coach, which makes him very savage. The cry 
of " Cut behind ! " from the malicious urchins on the pave- 
ment, wounds at once his self-love and his interest. He 
wound not mind overloading his master's horses for another 
sixpence, but to do it for nothing is what shocks his 
humanity. He hates the boy for imposing upon him, 
and the boys for reminding him that he has been imposed 
upon ; and he would willingly twinge the cheeks of 
all nine. The cut of his whip over the coach is malig- 
nant. He has a constant eye to the road behind him. 
He has also an eye to what may be left in the coach. 
He will undertake to search the straw for you, and 
miss the half-crown on purpose. He speculates on 
what he may get above his fare, according to your 
manners or company ; and knows how much to ask for 
driving faster or slower than usual. He does not like wet 
weather so much as people suppose ; for. he says it rots both 
his horses and harness, and he takes parties out of town 
when the weather is fine, which produces good payments 
in a lump. Lovers, late supper-eaters, and girls going 
home from boarding-school, are his best pay. He has a 
rascally air of remonstrance when you dispute half the over- 
charge, and according to the temper he is in, begs you to 
consider his bread, hopes you will not make such a fuss 
about a trifle ; or tells you, you make take his number or 
sit in the coach all night. 

A great number of ridiculous adventures must have taken 
place, in which hackney-coaches were concerned. The 
story of the celebrated harlequin Lunn, who secretly pitched 
himself out of one into a tavern window, and when the 
coachman was about to submit to the loss of his fare, 
astonished him by calling out again from the inside, is too 
well known for repetition. There is one of Swift, not 



234 COACHES 

perhaps so common. He was going, one dark evening, 
to dine with some great man, and was accompanied by 
some other clergymen, to whom he gave their cue. They 
were all in their canonicals. When they arrive at the 
house, the coachman opens the door, and lets down the 
steps. Down steps the Dean, very reverend in his black 
robes ; after him comes another personage, equally black 
and dignified ; then another ; then a fourth. The coach- 
man, who recollects taking up no greater number, is about 
to put up the steps, when another clergyman descends. 
After giving way to this other, he proceeds with great con- 
fidence to toss them up, when lo ! another comes. Well, 
there cannot, he thinks, be more than six. He is mistaken. 
Down comes a seventh, then an eighth ; then a ninth ; all 
with decent intervals \ the coach, in the mean time, rocking 
as if it were giving birth to so many daemons. The coach- 
man can conclude no less. He cries out, " The devil ! 
the devil ! " and is preparing to run away, when they all 
burst into laughter. They had gone round as they de- 
scended, and got in at the other door. 

We remember in our boyhood an edifying comment on 
the proverb of " all is not gold that glistens. " The spec- 
tacle made such an impression upon us, that we recollect 
the very spot, which was at the corner of a road in the 
way from Westminster to Kennington, near a stone-mason's. 
It was a severe winter, and we were out on a holiday, think- 
ing, perhaps, of the gallant hardships to which the ancient 
soldiers accustomed themselves, when we suddenly beheld 
a group of hackney-coachmen, not, as Spencer says of his 
witch, 

'* Busy, as seemed, about some wicked gin," 

but pledging each other in what appeared to us to be little 
glasses of cold water. What temperance, thought we ! 
What extraordinary and noble content ! What more than 



COACHES 235 

Roman simplicity ! Here are a set of poor Englishmen, 
of the homeliest order, in the very depth of winter, quench- 
ing their patient and honourable thirst with modicums of 
cold water! O true virtue and courage ! O sight worthy 
of the Timoleons and Epaminondases ! We know not how 
long we remained in this error ; but the first time we recog- 
nised the white devil for what it was — the first time we saw 
through the crystal purity of its appearance — was a great 
blow to us. We did not then know what the drinkers 
went through ; and this reminds us that we have omitted 
one great redemption of the hackney-coachman's character 
— his being at the mercy of all chances and weathers. 
Other drivers have their settled hours and pay. He only 
is at the mercy of every call and every casuality ; he only 
is dragged, without notice, like the damned in Milton, into 
the extremities of wet and cold, from his alehouse fire 
to the freezing rain ; he only must go any where, at what 
hour and to whatever place you choose, his old rheumatic 
limbs shaking under his weight of rags, and the snow and 
sleet beating into his puckered face, through streets which 
the wind scours like a channel. 




GOING TO THE PLAY AGAIN 



With the exception of Oberon we have not witnessed a 
theatrical performance till the other night for these six or 
seven years. Fortune took us another way ; and when we 
had the opportunity we did not dare to begin again, lest our 
old friends should beguile us. We mention the circum- 
stance, partly to account for the notice we shall take of 
many things which appear to have gone by ; and partly out 
of a communicativeness of temper, suitable to a Companion. 
For the reader must never lose sight of our claims to that 
title. On ordinary occasions, he must remember that we 
are discussing morals or mince-pie with him ; on political 
ones, reading the newspaper with him ; and in the present 
instance, we are sitting together in the pit (the ancient seat 
of criticism), seeing ivho is who in the play-bill, and hearing 
the delicious discord of the tuning of instruments, — the 
precursor of harmony. If our companion is an old gentle- 
man, we take a pinch of his snuff, and lament the loss of 
Bannister and Mrs Jordan. Toothache and his nephew 
occupy also a portion of our remark ; and we cough with 
236 



GOING TO THE PLAY AGAIN 



237 



an air of authority. If he is a young gentleman, we speak 
of Vestris and Miss Foote ; wonder whether little Goward 
will show herself improving to-night ; denounce the absur- 
dity of somebody's boots, or his bad taste in beauty ; and 
are loud in deprecating the fellows who talk loudly behind 
us. Finally, if a lady, we bend with delight to hear the 
remarks she is making, " far above " criticism ; and to see 
the finer ones in her eyes. We criticise the ladies in the 
boxes ; and the more she admires them, the more we find 
herself the lovelier. May we add, that ladies in the pit, 
this cold weather, have still more attractions than usual ; 
and that it is cruel to find ourselves sitting, as we did the 
other night, behind two of them, when we ought to have 
been in the middle, partaking of the genial influence of 
their cloaks, their comfortable sides, and their conversa- 
tion ? We were going to say, that we hope this is not 
too daring a remark for a Companion : — but far be it from 
us to apologise for anything so proper. Don't we all go to 
the theatre to keep up our love of nature and sociality ? 

It was delightful to see " the house " again, and to feel 
ourselves recommencing our old task. How pleasant looked 
the ceiling, the boxes, the pit, everything ! Our friends 
in the gallery were hardly noisy enough for a beginning ; 
nor, on the other hand, could we find it in our hearts to be 
angry with two companions behind us, who were a little 
noisier than they ought to have been, and who entertained 
one another with alternate observations on the beauty of the 
songs and the loss of a pair of gloves. All is pleasant 
in these recommencements of a former part of one's 
life ; this new morning, as it were, re-begun with the 
lustre of chandeliers and a thousand youthful remembrances. 
Anon the curtain rises, and we are presented with a view 
of the lighthouse of Genoa, equally delicious and unlike, — 
some gunboats returning from slavery, salute us with meek 
puffs of gunpowder, about as audible as pats on the cheek, 



238 GOING TO THE PLAY AGAIN 

— the most considerate cannon we ever met with : then 
follow a crowd and a chorus, with embraces of redeemed 
captives, meeting their wives and children, at which we 
are new and uncritical enough to feel the tears come into 
our eyes ; and, finally, in comes Mr " Atkins," with a 
thousand memories on his head, — husband that was of a 
pretty little singer some twenty years back, now gone, 
Heaven knows where, like a blackbird. It seemed wrong 
in Atkins to be there, and his wife not with him. Yet we 
were glad to see him notwithstanding. We knew him the 
instant we heard him speak. 

Native Land (a title, by the by, which looks like one 
of the captives, with an arm off) is worth going to see, for 
those who care little about plot or dialogue, provided there 
be good music. Part of the music is by Mr Bishop, the rest 
from Rossini. It is seldom that any of Mr Bishop's music 
is not worth hearing, and one or two of the airs are among 
Rossini's finest. There is Di placer, for instance; and we 
believe another, which we did not stay to hear. We fear 
it is a little out of the scientific pale to think Rossini a man 
of genius ; but we confess, with all our preference for such 
writers as Mozart, with whom, indeed, he is not to be com- 
pared, we do hold that opinion of the lively Italian. There 
is genius of many kinds, and of kinds very remote from one 
another, even in rank. The greatest genius is so great a 
thing that another may be infinitely less, and yet of the 
stock. Now Rossini, in music, is the genius of sheer 
animal spirits. It is a species as inferior to that of Mozart, 
as the cleverness of a smart boy is to that of a man of senti- 
ment ; but it is genius nevertheless. It is rare, effective, 
and a part of the possessor's character : — we mean, that 
like all persons who really affect anything beyond the 
common, it belongs and is peculiar to him, like the invisible 
genius that was supposed of old to wait upon individuals. 
This is what genius means ; and Rossini undoubtedly has 



GOING TO THE PLAY AGAIN 



239 



one. " He hath a devil, " as Cowley's friend used to cry 
out when he read Virgil ; and a merry devil it is, and 
graceful withal. It is a pity he has written so many com- 
monplaces, so many bars full of mere chatter, and overtures 
so full of cant and puffing. But this exuberance appears to 
be a constituent part of him. It is the hey-day in his blood ; 
and perhaps we could no more have the good things without 
it than some men of wit can talk well without a bottle of 
wine and in the midst of a great deal of nonsense. Now 
and then he gives us something worthy of the most popular 
names of his country, as in the instance above mentioned. 
Di placer is full of smiling delight and anticipation, as the 
words imply. Sometimes he is not deficient even in tender- 
ness, as in one or two airs in his Othello ; but it is his 
liveliest operas, such as the Barbiere di Seviglia and the 
Italiana in Algieri that he shines. His mobs make some of 
the pleasantest riots conceivable ; his more gentlemanly pro- 
ceedings, his bows and compliments, are full of address and 
even elegance, and he is a prodigious hand at a piece of 
pretension or foppery. Not to see into his merit in these 
cases, surely implies only, that there is a want of animal 
spirits on the part of the observer. 

As we are not so fond of sharp criticism, as when we 
were young and knew not what it was to feel it, we shall 
say nothing of one or two of the fair singers on this occa- 
sion, except that they did not appear to have a sufficient 
stock of the spirits we have been speaking of. To animal 
spirits, animal spirits alone can do justice. A burst of joy 
will be ill represented by the sweetest singing in the world 
that is not joyous, and that does not burst forth like a shower 
of blossoms. Of Miss Goward's singing we can yet form 
no judgment, as she had a very bad cold ; but she did her 
best with it, and did not apologise, which gave us a favourable 
opinion of her ; and her acting increased it. If she does 
not turn out to be a very judicious person, with a good deal 



2 4 o GOING TO THE PLAY AGAIN 

of humour, she will disappoint us. Madame Vestris, though 
she does not insinuate a sufficient stock of sentiment through 
her gayeties to complete the proper idea of a charmer to 
our taste, is always charming after her fashion ; but from 
what we recollect of her, we doubt whether her performance 
in this piece is one of her favourite ones. The song of Is't 
art, I pray, or Nature ? she gave with too little vivacity ; 
and her part in the bolero she seemed to go through more 
as a duty than a pleasure — which is anything but boleresque. 
Mr Wood has great sweetness of voice, with taste and 
sensibility ; and the sweetness is manly. He was encored in 
the " romance" — Deep in a Dungeon ; but we preferred him 
in his first pleasing air, Farewell, thou Coast of Glory. We 
shall be glad to see him again, and to say more of him. 
We suspect he has more power than he yet puts forth. 

There is no necessity to criticise the dialogue. The 
author himself probably regards it as being nothing more 
than one of our old unpretending acquaintances, yclept 
M vehicles for music;" carriers of song, as Messrs 
dementi's are of piano-fortes. There is one scene, how- 
ever, upon which we shall say a word. It is that in which 
a maimed husband comes back from the wars, and is received 
by his wife with aversion and ridicule. It is true the cari- 
cature is evident ; it is the only way in which such feelings 
can be made ludicrous ; but there is something in it from 
which the heart revolts. It is a dangerous point to divert 
ridicule from its proper objects, and give degrading repre- 
sentations of humanity. There is something, too, on these 
especial occasions, when the joke is carried far (as is the 
case in violent double meanings in company), by which 
privacy itself is turned into publicity, and we become pain- 
fully conscious of the presence of those, with whom we 
could best interchange the most pleasurable ideas. We 
profess to be anything but prudes ; we have no objection, 
for instance, to Zanina's being reconciled to " little fellows," 



GOING TO THE PLAY AGAIN 2 4 i 

whose ways are delightful ; — but because we are not prudish, 
we become the more jealous in behalf of what may be called 
the humanities of license. 

We must own we could not help laughing at some 
passages of Miss Goward's acting in this scene ; and 
perhaps we scan the matter somewhat too nicely. Those 
who laughed most would probably have been among the 
first to hug the remnant of their maimed friends to their 
heart. But the experiment is dangerous. There is not 
too much sentiment in society after all ; and it is better not 
to risk what there is. With what relief did we not call to 
mind, in our graver moments, the sight we had once, in 
those boxes, on the left hand, of a charming woman sitting 
next her gallant husband, Colonel C, who had returned 
from the wars with the frightful loss of his lower jaw. His 
wife married him after his return ; and this, we were told, 
was she. He had his mouth and chin muffled up. But 
how did he not seem more than repaid in her sweet and 
loving presence, which we fancied that she pressed still 
closer to him than was visible in that of any other woman 
seated by her husband's side. When she looked in his face, 
we felt as if we could almost have been content to have lost 
the power of kissing with lips, that we might have received 
in all its beauty that kiss of the soul. 




MADAME PASTA 



i 

Going to the King's Theatre again is a very different thing 
from renewing one's acquaintance with the other theatres. 
We confess, with all our love of Italian and of singing, we 
do not like it so well. The quiet seems pleasanter at first ; 
treading upon matting is a sort of polite and gingerly thing ; 
and it is interesting to look around for those beautiful faces 
belonging to Lady Charlottes and Carolines, dropping their 
lids down upon us as if they wore coronets, and not always 
the better for it. But the cue of polite life is to take indiffer- 
ence for self-possession ; and you are not seated long before 
you begin to feel that there is an air of neutralization and 
falsehood around you. The quiet is a dread of committing 
themselves ; — people come as much to be seen as to see ; — 
the performers in the boxes prepare for disputing attention 



MADAME PASTA 243 

with those on the stage ; — -men lounge about the alleys, 
looking so very easy that they are evidently full of con- 
straint ; the looks of the women dispute one another's 
pretensions ; — if you have been long away, you are not 
sure that something is not amiss in your appearance ; that 
you are not guilty of some overt act of a wrong cape, or 
absurd reasonableness of neckcloth ; in short, you feel that 
the great majority of the persons around, you have come to 
the Opera because it is the Opera, and not from any real 
love of music and the graces. The only persons really 
interested, with the exception of a few private lovers of 
music here and there, are the young and inexperienced ; 
musicians, who come to criticise the music ; and foreigners, 
whom it is pleasant to hear speaking their own language. 
After all, these last are the only persons who seem at 
home. The musicians are apt to be thinking too much 
of their flats and sharps, and compasses of voice. The 
young people, though they dare not own it to themselves, 
soon get heartily tired of everything but looking at the 
company ; and the private lover of music gets as tired 
with the glare and commonplace of nine-tenths of the 
performance. 

Thanks and glory to Pasta, who relieved us from all 
this spectacle of indifference and pretension the moment 
we heard the soul in her voice, and beheld the sincerity 
in her face. Pit and boxes were at once forgotten, quality, 
affectation, criticism, everything but delight and nature. 
Like a lark, she took us up at once out of that " sullen 
earth," and made us feel ourselves in a heaven of warmth 
and truth, and thrilling sensibility. If these are thought 
enthusiastic phrases, they are so. What others could we 
use to do justice to the enthusiasm of genius, and to the 
delight it produces in those golden showers out of its sky ? 

We saw Madame Pasta, for the first time, years ago, 
in the character of the page in Figaro^ and afterwards in 



244 MADAME PASTA 

that of the female (we forget her name) in the Ciemenza 
dl Tito, who sings with her lover the beautiful duet, Deh 
prendl un dolce amplesso. In the page, if we recollect, we 
thought her heavy and ungain. In the other part, we 
remember that Begrez, a singer not given to too much 
passion, stood while he was singing the duet with her, 
holding her hand, not indifferently as they generally do, 
but with tenderness and affection, cherishing it against his 
bosom ; a piece of nature which we have since attributed to 
her suggestion. If we are wrong, we beg his pardon. At 
all events, it was creditable to him, suggested or not. 

Since we have seen Madame Pasta again, the heavy kind 
of simplicity which we recollect in her Figaro must either 
have been the consequence of her having a greater tact for 
nature and truth, than she at that time felt experience enough 
to put forth, or her performance of the part may have been 
better suited to the character than we took it for. The 
page, in that very breath-suspended and conscious piece, 
which is always hovering on the borders of strange things, 
is in reality in a very awkward position, and extremely 
sensible of it ; and we are not sure, if we could have seen 
Madam Pasta in it, with as much knowledge of her then 
as we persuade ourselves we have now, that we should not 
have found her the exact person for the character, and 
presenting a portrait, full of truth, in its very ungainness and 
want of teaching. 

Truth is the great charm of this fine vocal actress. She 
waits upon it, without claim or misgiving ; and like a noble 
mistress, truth in turn waits upon her, and loves her like her 
child. We never saw anybody before on the stage who 
impressed us with a sense of this sort of moral charm in its 
perfection. Even Mrs Siddons had always a queen-like 
air in her nature, which seemed to be conscious of the 
homage paid it, and to crown itself with its glory. Madame 
Pasta, as the occasion demands, is tranquil, grave, smiling, 



MADAME PASTA 245 

transported, angry, affectionate, voluptuous ; intent at one 
minute as a bust, radiant as a child with joy at the next ; 
intellectual as a Muse, full of wily and sliding tones as a 
Venus ; in short, the occasion itself, and whatever it does 
with the human being. Imagine a female brought up in 
solitude, with a natural sincerity that nothing has injured, 
walking quietly about a beautiful spot, reading everything 
that comes in her way, accomplished, at ease, getting even 
a little too fat with the perfection of her comfort and her 
ignorance of anything ungraceful ; and imagine this same 
female gifted with as much sensibility as truth, and weeping, 
laughing, and undergoing every emotion that books can 
furnish her with, as she turns over the leaves ; and you 
have a picture of this noble performer, and the extraordinary 
effect she produces without anything like theatrical effort. 
Not that she cannot indulge the critics now and then with 
the idea of a stage actress, and set herself to make her 
bravura effective ; but truth is at the bottom even of that, 
and she is sure to throw in some tone and sweet reference 
to nature ; as much as to say to the lovers of it, " Do not 
imagine I have forgotten you." She is like a nature full 
of truth, brought out of solitude into the world ; and too 
much habituated to sincerity, too sweet in the use of it, and 
too conscious of the power it gives her, to forego so rare, 
so charming, and so triumphant a distinction. 

We do not pretend to make any discovery in this matter. 
The accounts we heard of her in Medea showed us that 
the discovery had been made already ; and it has been set 
forth by a critic, worthy of that name, in an article com- 
paring this "perfection of natural acting " with that of the 
French. With a reference to this article, which is to be 
found in the Plain Speaker, Vol. II., and which we regret 
we have no room to quote, for nothing need be said of the 
opera itself, we must conclude. Tancredi is said to be one 
of the most popular of Rossini's operas, but is by no means 



246 MADAME PASTA 

one of his best ; being crammed, in fact, as full of common- 
places and old threadbare recitative as nine-tenths of it can 
hold. It is theatrical clothesman's music. But there is 
good in the remainder ; and the fine air, Di tanti palpiti, is 
part of it. If any one thinks he has heard this air a 
hundred times, till he has got tired of it, let him never 
mind, but go and hear it from Madame Pasta ; he will then 
find he has never heard it before. We have left ourselves 
as little room to speak of the other performers, some of them 
excellent in their way, especially Madame Caradori ; but 
after our new, true, and most original acquaintance, even 
the best of conventional singers become comparatively un- 
interesting. Caradori is like a sweet and perfect musical 
instrument, by the side of her ; not that she does not act 
too better than most singers ; she even contrives, in her 
manners, to give us an amiable as well as clever idea of her ; 
but Pasta coming upon all this, even in her most tranquil 
moments, seems like the very noontide of humanity risen 
upon a cold morning of it. There is more effective grace 
in the least of her movements, though she is too fat, and 
sometimes looks heavily so, than in all the received elegan- 
cies of the stage ; — so beautiful as well as great is truth. 
By the way, we had forgotten to say that her voice is not 
perfect. Who asks whether any voice is so, when sen- 
sibility and sincerity speak together, and the sound is hugged 
into one's heart ! 

II 

We wish to add something to our last article respecting 
the truth and beauty of this singer's performance. It has been 
suggested to us, that Madame Pasta is not so much absorbed 
as people may think her in the business of the scene ; that 
she finds time, like other singers at the opera, for those little 
interchanges of by- jokes and grown- children's play, by 
which they occasionally refresh themselves from a sense of 



MADAME PASTA 247 

their duties ; and that in a concert-room or an oratorio, 
where no illusion is going forward, we should find more 
defects in her as a singer than we are aware of. Finally, 
another friend tells us, that we make a good deal of what 
we see ; and in our gratitude for a favourite quality, find 
more of it to be grateful for than exists anywhere but in our 
own imaginations. 

We doubt whether we are not committing the dignity of the 
critical character in thus admitting that our opinion can be 
disputed privately. A correspondent is another matter. He 
approaches his critic with a curtain between, and the latter 
retreats farther into the mystery and multiplicity of his plural 
" we," leaving his questioner uncertain how many secret 
faculties and combined resources of experience he may not 
have ventured to differ with. But to acknowledge that we are 
mortal and individual men, "singular good" fellows, who can 
be disputed with over one's wine and tea, face to face, and be 
forced to say " I ; " and give a reason, with more privilege 
to be wrong than any other man's reason ; all this would be 
very frightful to us, if instead of being critics or judges, 
sitting aloof above sympathy, and periwigged with imposture, 
we did not profess to be what we really are, nothing but Com- 
panions : men who get from sympathy all they know, and do 
not care twopence for anything but truth and good-fellowship. 

We say, then, to these our objectors, public or private 
(for after all there is no difference between them, except as 
to the dry matter of fact ; we take a real bottle with one, 
and an imaginary one with the other) — we say, filling our 
glass, and looking them in the face, with all that bland 
beatitude of certainty, so convincing in any man, especially 
if he does not proceed to argue the point (as we have an 
unfortunate propensity to do) — My dear So-and-so, you 
are most horribly in the wrong. I wonder at a man of your 
intelligence. You surprise me. Do you think so, indeed ? 
Well, you astonish me. I'm sure, if you would but reflect 



248 MADAME PASTA 

a little. Well, I never. You are the last man I should 
have thought capable of using that argument. Nothing will 
ever persuade me, etc. 

These answers ought to be convincing. But as some un- 
reasonable persons may remain, who are not so easily con- 
vinced, and as we have a conscience that induces us not to 
leave them out, we shall proceed to observe, that all which 
is urged against us on the point in question may be very true, 
and Pasta yet remain just what we have described her. In 
the first place, it is not necessary to suppose her absorbed 
in the business of the scene in order to do it justice. It 
would be impossible she could do so, if she were. "If a 
man," said Johnson, " really thought himself Richard the 
Third, he would deserve to be hung." All we contend 
for is, that Madame Pasta has the power, to a surprising 
extent, of pitching herself into the character of the person 
she represents. The greater this power, the more suddenly 
she can exercise it. She touches the amulet of her im- 
agination in an instant, and is the person she wishes to 
appear. It is a voluntary power of the extremest degree, 
in one sense : and yet, in another, it is the most involuntary ; 
that is to say, she can abstract herself at a moment's notice 
from circumstances not belonging to the scene, and yet in 
the next she is under the influence of the character imagined, 
as much as if she were a child. We will venture to illustrate 
this by a reference to authorship and to ourselves. We shall 
be talking for instance, in the midst of half a dozen friends ; 
they shall all be talking with us : and we shall be thinking no 
more of authorship than of the Emperor Nicholas. On a 
sudden it becomes necessary that we should look at our paper, 
and give a turn to some story or other piece of writing, serious 
or merry. In a moment we are as abstracted as if we were a 
hundred miles off. We hear the conversation no more than 
people hear the rumbling of the coaches when they are not 
thinking about them ; and, with the laugh hardly off our lips, 



MADAME PASTA 249 

become as grave as the heroine of our story ; or, with the tears 
almost in our eyes, sit down to give the finish to a joke, and 
tickle ourselves into laughter with the point of it. Now why 
should we not believe, that what we ourselves can do, others 
cannot do twenty times as well ? 

That Madame Pasta should not feel everything just as 
strongly as she imagines it, and that she should give evi- 
dences to near observers that she can occasionally amuse 
herself, as other favourite performers do, with certain quips 
and cranks among one another, takes away nothing of the 
imaginative truth of what she has to do, and only adds to 
the evidences of the voluntary power. We certainly doubt 
whether she could do this so well in some characters as in 
others. We should guess that she was least able to do it 
much, and most inclined to do it at all, when performing 
characters that tried her feelings the most severely. There 
are stories of Garrick's turning round with a comic grin in 
the thick of the distresses of King Lear ; and similar 
stories have been related of Mr Kean. Believe them if you 
will ; but do not believe that those great performers felt less 
the truth of what they were about. Perhaps what they did 
was necessary, as a relief to their feelings ; just as sensitive 
men will shock company sometimes by cracking jokes upon 
some topic of distress. It is not because they do not feel 
it, but because they do, and because some variety of sensa- 
tion is necessary to enable them to endure their feelings. 
If an actor were to feel, unmixed, all he seems to feel in 
such characters as Lear, he would go nigh to lose his senses 
in good earnest. Tragic actresses, the most eminent, have 
been known to faint and go into fits upon the performance 
of a trying character. Perhaps they would not have done 
so had their personal character contained variety and re- 
source enough in it to call in the aid of this occasional 
volatility. Even Garrick is known to have looked pre- 
maturely old. Yet Garrick had everything to support him 



250 MADAME PASTA 

— fortune, prudence, and a good constitution. When we 
hear actors, equally great in their way, but less happy in 
bodily frame, rebuked severely for certain excesses alleged 
against them, we sometimes think it a pity that the rebukers 
do not know what it is to go through all that wear and tear 
of sensation^ and to be at a loss how to keep up a proper 
level of excitement in their general feelings. We are not 
sure that Madame Pasta does not unconsciously let herself 
grow fatter than might be wished, out of an uneasy feeling 
of something to be supported and strengthened in this way ; 
especially when it is considered that persons of her profession 
lead artificial lives, and cannot so well be kept healthy as 
others, by good hours and a life otherwise uninterfered with. 

As to a concert-room or an oratorio, it is a dull business 
compared with singing amidst the feelings of a scene. 
Such places are fittest for instrumental performances, and for 
instrument-like singers. In the concert-room the audience 
expect little passion, and find it. They are themselves in a 
dull and formal state ; there is often a majority of musicians 
present, and a majority of musicians cannot be of the first 
order, nor do they desire anything of the first order in 
others. They wish the singers to act up simply to their 
own notions of excellence, which are but a reflection of 
themselves. All is quiet, mechanical, mediocre. Up gets 
a lady or gentleman, book in hand, and out of this is to dis- 
burse us the proper quantity of notes, checked by that 
emblem of reference to the dead letter. She does so ; is 
duly delivered of a B, or a D, and everything is " as well 
as can be expected." 

So in an oratorio. The audience are all assembled, as 
grave as need be ; the season, and the usual dull character 
of oratorios, helps to formalize them ; there is a good deal 
of mourning in the house, and sacred music is to be per- 
formed, mixed with a little illegal profane. That is to say, 
there is nothing real in the business, and nobody can be 



MADAME PASTA 251 

either properly merry or mournful. Which is just the case. 
In comes a gentleman, dressed in black, hitching his way 
along sideways, and leading a lady up the alley behind the 
orchestra ; another follows, and another, equally polite and 
preparatory : it is Madame So-and-so, in a hat and feathers ; 
it is Miss W. or Mrs Z., all dressed like other gentle- 
women, which is odd ; and like other gentlewomen they 
take their seats, and look as if they ought to drink tea. 
Music books make their appearance, as in the concert-room, 
and up rises the lady or gentleman to sing in the same 
formal manner, and be discreet in their flats. The sacred 
music drags, the profane music hops, and the audience wish 
themselves in their beds. 

Madame Pasta may probably not excel at such exhibi- 
tions as these. We do not desire that she should. It 
would not be easy to persuade us that, sing where she may, 
her singing would not be better than the most formal per- 
fection ; but the worst thing we can say of an oratorio is, 
that not even she can take us there. Put her on the stage, 
or in a company among friends, let loose her feelings, and 
then we have the soul of music ; and this is the only real 
music in the world. 

That we make what we find on such occasions, and 
listen with our imaginations upon us, is only saying, in other 
words, that the occasion is fit to excite the enthusiasm ; 
otherwise, how does it happen that it is not equally excited 
on others ? Doubtless there must be enthusiasm and 
imagination to do fit justice to the same qualities in the 
performer. Loveliness must have love. But how is it 
that love is excited by some things and not by others ? 
How is it that multitudes are wound up to enthusiasm by 
one orator and not by another, and that Madame Pasta 
produces the same sensation from Naples to Berlin ? She 
is not an unknown singer, trumped up by a solitary 
enthusiast. Cities are her admirers ; and she would take 



252 MADAME PASTA 

hearts by storm everywhere, whether critics explained or 
not by what magic she did it. 

It is nevertheless very pleasant to us to know what the 
magic is. We never feel the value of criticism, except 
when it enables us to double our delight in this manner ; 
for none can hold in greater contempt than we do the 
common cant of criticism, or less pride themselves in 
finding out those common defects to which critics in 
general have a natural attraction. It is truth that gives 
Madame Pasta her advantage ; the same truth, yes, the 
very same spirit of sincerity and straightforwardness which 
is charming in conversation and in matters of confidence ; 
which enables one face to look at another, unalloyed with 
a contradiction, and makes the heart sometimes gush in- 
wardly with tenderness at the countenance that little sus- 
pects it. The reason is, that some of the most painful 
infirmities with which the state of society besets us are 
then taken away, and we not only think we have reason 
to be delighted, but are sure of it. For this we know no 
bounds to our gratitude ; and it is just ; for you could not 
more transport a man shaken all over with palsy by sud- 
denly gifting him with firmness, than you do any human 
being, in the present state of things, by making him secure 
upon any one point which he ardently desires to believe in. 
There is, therefore, a moral charm, of the most liberal 
kind, in Madame Pasta' s performances, which argues well 
for her personal character ; and personal character, wish as 
we may, always mingles, more or less, with the impression 
created by others upon us. It is, indeed, a part of them, 
which helps to make them what they are, off a stage or on 
it, pretending or not pretending. It is true there is a 
difference between moral truth and imaginative ; and it does 
not follow that, because Madame Pasta tells the truth in 
everything she does on the stage, she should be an example 
of the virtue elsewhere. It is an argument, however, that 



OLD ACTORS 253 

she would be so ; just as the taste for an accomplishment 
implies that a person is more likely to excel in it than if 
there were no such taste. Madame Pasta has to look 
sorrowful, and no sorrow can be completer : she has to 
look joyful, and her face is all joy, — as true and total a 
beaming as that of a girl without a spectator, who sees her 
lover hailing her from a distance. We have seen such 
looks, and they have stood us instead of any other cer- 
tainty. Madame Pasta knows the truth well, and knows 
how to honour it ; and this is an evidence that the in- 
clination of her nature is true, whatever the world may 
have done to spoil it. We are aware, mind, of no such 
spoliation. Our impulse, if we knew this charming per- 
former (which is a pleasure incompatible with the confounded 
critical office we have taken upon us), would be to give 
as implicit belief to everything she said off the stage as on 
it. But we wish to guard against a wrong argument, and 
to show the triumph and the beautiful tendencies of truth, 
whether borne out in all their quarters or not. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD 
ACTORS 

The removal of our place of publication to Brydges Street 
has reminded us, that many years ago we began writing 
theatricals at the house two doors from us, where the paper 
[The News) is still published in which we made our debut. 
May it live forever ! We rejoice in its neighbourhood, 
and hope it is not sorry for ours. It must now be nearly 
thirty years since we first wrote articles in the newspapers. 
We were then in our boyhood, or rather lad-hood. Not 
many years short of that period, we adventured on the 



254 OLD ACTORS 

perilous task of criticism ; and here we are again, in the 
same street, almost on the same spot, occupied with a new 
paper, and pursuing the old track. It makes us feel as if 
we were beginning life over again. 

Drury Lane Theatre is not the same identical Drury 
Lane it was then. It is on the same spot, but its body 
has been altered. It is the old friend with a new face. 
Covent Garden has experienced the same rejuvenescence. 
Alas ! why cannot actors and play-goers grow young again 
too ! Why cannot they be old friends with new faces, — 
the interior spirit the same, but the body remoulded ! How 
patiently one would stand to have the scaffold set up round 
about us, while the little genii (whoever they were that 
acted the part of bricklayers) should pursue their task of 
restoration, elevating one's front, extending the wings, and 
new glazing those dimmed windows, the eyes ! Then to 
take down the scaffolding ; and like the statue of Memnon, 
we would sing at the touch of morning. 

It is a pity that some such thing cannot take place, for 
the sake of those that particularly desire it. Rabelais says 
that he was sure he must have been the son of a king, 
because nobody had more princely inclinations. We in- 
cline, in the same manner, to be so young in our feelings, 
and to desire such a good long life before us to do a world 
of things in, that it seems as if we had a right to it. 
Mortality is a good provision, considering that the world 
has not come to its state of enjoyment, and that people in 
general, by the time they are forty, hardly know what to 
do with their Sundays : but an exception might be made, 
we think, in favour of those who could occupy all their 
hours some way or other for a hundred years to come, and 
who have not yet got over their love even of gingerbread. 
It will take us at least twenty years longer before we arrive 
at an indifference to lemon-cake. A " book of pictures " 
we cannot conceive the possibility of not caring for ; and 



OLD ACTORS 255 

as to the bright visions of nymphs, and goddesses, and Miss 
Smith, which filled our dreams, sleeping and waking, do 
we not take Madame Pasta for the very personification of 
truth ? and did we not go seven times to see Miss Inver- 
arity, because she has the very voice of cheerful girlhood, 
high and trusting, and we are sure, while we are hearing 
her, that there is one person among the audience of her 
own age ? Did we, and do we not believe in the marvels 
of Cinderella, just as much as if we had come ten minutes 
ago, from reading the little gilt story-book on a school 
step ? And did not the dance of the nymphs with torches 
appear to us as if a page out of Ovid had become true ? 
Have we not, in short, faith infinite, hope, — we dare to 
add charity ; yea, even more than we had at sophisticate 
seventeen, when people are for being^something different 
from what they are ? We beg leave to say, our age is 
fifteen ; we have run the great circle, and come round to 
it : and we think it a little hard that we are forced to look 
so much older. 

There is scarcely any one performer remaining at Drury 
Lane of all that we remember when we first began writing 
theatricals. We are not sure there is even one. Liston 
and Dowton came soon, but we recollect the debuts of 
both — of the former certainly. Farren is quite a modern, 
and Harley. Mrs Orger made her appearance years after- 
wards, and we have none of the then old ladies, Mrs 
Sparks, Mrs Mattocks, Miss Pope. The reigning women 
then were, Miss Pope, with her precise bit of a voice, and 
genuine humour ; Mrs Mattocks, who had a never-failing 
recipe of a sudden flash of laughter, starting out of an acrid 
face ; the beautiful and good-natured Mrs Powell, with 
her honeyed tones (those who recollect them surely must 
do something for her in her old age) ; Miss Murray 
(afterwards Mrs Henry Siddons), with her sweet voice 
and eyes, the latter a little too rolling ; Mrs Henry 



256 OLD ACTORS 

Johnstone, a slight, handsome creature, with a formidable 
power of looking vixenish ; Miss Duncan, now Mrs 
Davison, long a most clever actress with a liberal style ; 
Mrs Jordan, delightful Mrs Jordan, whose voice did away 
the cares of the whole house, before they saw her come in, 
and Mrs Siddons, the mighty mother of the pall and 
sceptre. We always remember her as the mother, — as 
something elderly, and even gaunt. We suspect that, with 
all her talents, she was, by nature, something of a dowager, 
compared with such a queen as Pasta. 

Mrs Gibbs was flourishing at that time, but she was at 
the Haymarket, very good, and very pretty in chamber- 
maids and black-mittened rustics. 

There also was Mrs Mills, a tight little actress, whose 
tightness led her to play drummers ; and Madame Storace, 
loud, free, and clever, with a reedy voice ; and Mrs 
Crouch, once lovely, then going the way of all forsaken 
Princes' mistresses ; and Mrs Billington, the favourite great 
singer, looking like a handsome apoplexy, and straining her 
throat till you thought she would have one ; and Mrs 
Bland, the favourite little singer, with a voice like her name, 
and a short, thick person, and dark face to match, which 
her sweet ballads made ever welcome. What troubles did 
not all these people have ! What pleasures too ! And 
how much pleasure did they not give ! 

With respect to the men, we begin to think that Mathews 
was at Drury Lane in those days ; but we are not sure. 
We remember him at the Haymarket, where Liston came 
out. Elliston was the great man at Drury, and John 
Kemble at Covent Garden. We used to be heretical enough 
to think the former the greater natural genius of the two, 
though of a less heroical turn for tragedy ; and we think so 
still. As a cordial and dashing comedian, in lirst-rate 
characters, we never saw him equalled. No gallant knew 
how to make love as he did. He had a fervour and a 



OLD ACTORS 257 

breath, as well as a cheerful eye and a most urgent voice, 
that made his energy of some consequence. 

Lewis surpassed him in airiness ; but there was no gentle- 
man comedian who comprised so many qualities of his art as 
he did, or who could diverge so well into those parts of 
tragedy which find a connecting link with the graver powers 
of the comedian in their gracefulness and humanity. He 
was the best Wildair, the best Archer, the best Aranza ; 
and carrying the seriousness of Aranza a little further, or 
making him a tragic gentleman instead of a comic, be became 
the best Mortimer, and even the best Macbeth, of any per- 
former who excelled in comedy. When Charles Kemble 
acts comedy he gives you the idea of an actor who has come 
out of the chivalrous part of tragedy. It is grace and show 
that are most natural to him ! — the ideal of mediocrity. 
Elliston being naturally a comedian, and comedy of the 
highest class demanding a greater sympathy with actual flesh 
and blood, his tragedy, though less graceful than Charles 
Kemble's, was- more natural and cordial. He suffered and 
was shaken more. The other, in his greatest grief, is but 
like the statue of some Apollo Belvedere vivified, frowning 
in beauty, and making a grace of his sorrow. The god 
remains impassive to ordinary suffering. Elliston's features 
were nothing nearly so handsome or so finely cut as the 
others ; but they were more sensitive and intelligent. He 
had nothing of the poetry of tragedy ; the other has the 
form of it ; but Elliston, in Macbeth, could give you some- 
thing of the weak, and sanguine, and misgiving usurper ; 
and in Mortimer, in the Iron Chest, he has moved the 
audience to tears. It ought not to be forgotten, that he 
restored that character to the stage, when John Kemble 
had killed it with his frigidity. 

The tragedy of this accomplished actor was, however, 
only an elongation, or drawing out, of the graver and more 
sensitive part of his comedy. It was in comedy that he 

R 



258 OLD ACTORS 

was the master. When Keene appeared and extinguished 
Kemble, Elliston seems prudently to have put out his tragic 
lamp. In comedy, after the death of Lewis, he remained 
without a rival. He had three distinguished excellences — 
dry humour, gentlemanly mirth, and fervid gallantry. His 
features were a little too round, and his person latterly 
became a great deal too much so. But we speak of him in 
his best days. His face, in one respect, was of that rare 
order which is peculiarly fitted for the expression of enjoy- 
ment — it laughed with the eyes as well as mouth. His 
eyes, which were not large, grew smaller when he was 
merry, and twinkled with glee and archness ; his smile was 
full of enjoyment ; and yet the moment he shook his head 
with a satirical deprecation, or dropped the expression of 
his face into an innuendo, nothing could be drier or more 
angular than his mouth. There was a generosity in his 
style, both in its greater and smaller points. He understood 
all the little pretended or avowed arts of a gentleman, when 
he was conversing or complimenting, or making love, 
everything which implied the necessity of attention to the 
other person, and a just, and as it were, mutual conscious- 
ness of the graces of life on his own. His manners had 
the true minuet dance spirit of gentility, — the knowledge how 
to give and take, with a certain recognition of the merits on 
either side, even in the midst of raillery. And then his 
voice was remarkable for its union of the manly with the 
melodious ; and as a lover, nobody approached him. 
Certainly nobody approached a woman as he did. It was 
the reverse of that preposterous style of touch and avoid — 
that embracing at arms' length, and hinting of a mutual 
touch on the shoulders, — by which the ladies and gentlemen 
of the stage think fit to distinguish themselves from the 
characters they perform, and even the Pollys and Macheaths 
propitiate our good opinion. Elliston made out that it was 
no shame to love a woman, and no shame in her to return 



OLD ACTORS 261 

his passion. He took her hand, he cherished it against his 
bosom, he watched the moving of her countenance, he made 
the space less and less between them, and as he at length burst 
out into some exclamation of "charming ! " or "lovely ! " 
his voice trembled, not with weakness, but with the strength 
and fervour of its emotion. All the love, on the stage, since 
this (with the exception of Macready's domestic tenderness), 
is not worth twopence, and fit only to beget waiters. 

In calling to mind the pleasant hours that have been 
given us by the talents of Elliston, we must not forget to 
mention his defects. In tragedy, for want of a strong 
sympathy with the serious, he sometimes got into a common- 
place turbulence, and at others put on an affected solemnity ; 
and he was in the habit of halving between his words. 
The longer he was a manager, the worse this habit became. 
He was not naturally inclined to the authoritative ; but 
having once commenced it in order to give weight to his 
levity, he seems to have carried about the habit with him 
to maintain his importance. Unfortunately, he fancied that 
he was never more natural than on these occasions. He 
said once, at the table of a friend of ours, clapping himself on 
the knee, and breathing with his usual fervour, " Nature-^w, 
sir, is everything-tfw ; I-atu am always-«w natural-^w." 

Theodore Hook had a ludicrous story of his calling 
upon Elliston at the Surrey Theatre, and having some 
conversation with him in the midst of his managerial occu- 
pations. In the course of their dialogue, Elliston would 
start in a grand manner from the subject, and give some 
direction to his underlings. He called for two of them 
successively in the following manner : — 

Elliston — (turning suddenly to the right, and breathing with 
all his fervour.) "Night watchman! " — (Enter night watch- 
man, and has a word or two spoken to him by the manager.) 

Elliston — (scarcely having resumed the discourse, and 
turning suddenly as before), "Other night watchman!" 



262 OLD ACTORS 

— (Enter other night watchman, and is spoken to in like 
manner. The histrionic sovereign then resumes his discourse 
with Mr Hook, with tranquil dignity.) 

We had an hour's conversation with him once at Drury 
Lane ; during which, in answer to some observation we 
made respecting the quantity of business he had to get 
through, he told us, that he had formed himself "on the 
model of the Grand Pensionary De Witt." Coming with 
him out of the theatre, we noticed the present portico in 
Brydges Street, which had just been added to the front, 
and said that it seemed to have started up like magic. 
"Yes, sir," said he, "energy is the thing: I no sooner 
said it, than it was done — it was a Bonaparte blow." 

There was real energy in all this, and the right animal 
spirits, as well as an innocent pedantry : nor did it hinder 
him from being the delightful comedian we have described. 
He could not have been it, had he not been pleased with him- 
self: and a little superfluous self-complacency off the stage 
was to be pardoned him. A successful actor would be a 
phenomenon of modesty if he were not one of the vainest 
of men. Nobody gets such applause as he does, and in such 
an intoxicating way, except a conqueror entering a city. 

Then there was Bannister (now enjoying the otium cum 
benignitate), at the top of another line of comedy, not 
omitting homely domestic tragedy. His Walter, in the 
Children in the Wood, was as good, in its way, as Mrs 
Siddons's Lady Macbeth ; and his Job Thornberry, in 
John Bull, was as superior to Fawcett's as a brazier is to 
his brass. Bannister was one of those actors who give you 
the idea of being genuine honest men, and make you happy. 
Fawcett was excellent also in his line, which was that of 
impudent servants and gambling pedagogues No Pangloss 
and Caleb Quotem have ever been so good as his. The 
other men were John Kemble, the very statue of an old 
Roman set walking ; Pope, who had a dashing tragic style, 



OLD ACTORS 263 

but was monotonous, and was always lifting up his arms, 
like St Paul preaching at Athens ; Raymond, a melo- 
dramatic sort of actor, more intelligent than any one of the 
present, though harsh ; Henry Johnstone, another of a more 
ideal cast, and more quietly effective, though his hand- 
someness made him somewhat foppish ; Murray, the father 
of Miss Murray, a very sensible and pleasing actor in old 
gentlemen ; Powell, the last of the declamatory, white- 
handkerchief mourners of an older school ; Lewis, the 
essence of lightness, of whim, of the mercurial (we have 
often described him : 1 he is not to be replaced) ; Munden, 
who made every trifle of importance, and masticated his 
grins till they were irresistible ; Simons, the most filching 



1 Let the reader picture to himself a slight, youthful figure, of 
middle height, with sprightly eyes half shut with laughing, a 
mouth that showed its teeth a little when it smiled ; restless, 
and yet gentlemanly manners ; a pair of gloved hands that went 
through all the varieties of illustration that hands can insinuate, 
and thrust the point of a joke into your ribs with a finger, to the 
exclamation of " you dog ! " — light airy voice, harmonizing with 
the look of the face, often out of breath with spirits, and reposing 
sometimes on long lower tones of ludicrous contrast; a head full 
of nods, and becks, and flutterings ; and lastly, a habit of finish- 
ing his sentences with indescribable exclamations of hoof and 
phoof and a look of pouting astonishment, as if nothing remained 
on earth to wonder at but his triumphant foppery, and he joined 
the astonishment in order to be in the fashion. We have nothing 
like it nowadays: nothing so thin, so airy, so gentlemanly, so 
eternally young: for Lewis was the very same to the last. His 
slenderness and his animal spirits preserved his look of juvenility 
to the moment when he took leave of the stage. It was in the 
Copper Captain, with his epaulets dancing on his shoulders. He 
came forward at the end of the play to take leave, and for the first 
time in his life, perhaps, when on the stage, the good-natured 
actor shed tears and caused them. His gay voice failed him as he 
told the public that " for thirty years he had not once incurred 
their displeasure: " and he was obliged to put up his cocked hat 
before his face to hide his emotion. 



264 OLD ACTORS 

of filchers ; Emery, a perfect Yorkshireman, startling in 
rustic tragedy ; Wewitzer, the only Canton ; Irish John- 
stone, of most lackadaisical potency, and a good singer ; 
Blanchard, the best Marquis de Grand Chateau we have 
seen, a most petulant and palsied Signor, — still extant, and 
much, in other things, as he was ; and afterwards came Cooke, 
who took almost all the ideal out of tragedy, but put some 
good stuff into it, and was a painfully good Sir Pertinax ; then 
Master Betty, the plaything of declamation, whose cleverness 
deserved a better fate ; and after an interval, with many others 
still flourishing, Kean, the finest actor we ever beheld. 

We ought to mention Robert Palmer, a dogged kind of 
natural actor, especially in characters of sturdy impudence 
or sottish ness ; but we knew him only in his decline. John 
Palmer was before our time. So was Miss Farren: and Suett 
was before our critical days, though we remember him well, 
with his quaint, thin manner, and his little slippery laugh. 

We heard an exquisite anecdote of Suett the other day. 
It is not much to tell, but it is highly characteristic. Suett, 
it must be observed, was both one of the drollest and one 
of the simplest of mankind. His relish of a joke was 
infinite, but he gave rise to many a one unconsciously ; and 
hung upon the world, in all things, betwixt a laugh and an 
astonishment. It was he that said when he was dying, 
" O dear ! O dear ! Bobby going to die ! Here's a 
pretty job! Was there ever seen the like?" 

Suett one day took it into his head, gravely, to teach 
clergymen how to read the Lord's Prayer ! We forget 
the name of the public-house from which his card of 
announcement was addressed, but it ran in some such 
manner as the following, and was in perfect good faith : — 

" Clergymen taught to read the Lord's Prayer, 

By Robert Suett, Comedian. 

Address to the Cat and Feathers, No. 21 Drury Lane." 




Mr Kemble is a peculiar instance of almost all these essen- 
tials to good acting, and at the same time an example how 
much they may be injured by an indiscriminate application 
of study. His conceptions of character are strong where 
the characters themselves are strong, his attention to passions 
is fixed by large objects, he cannot sufficiently study the 
minute where minuteness is important, though as I shall 
hereafter explain he can give importance to minutenesses 
that mean nothing. He appears to submit everything to 
his judgment, and exhibits little of the enthusiasm of 
genius. The grander emotions are his chief study ; he 
attaches a kind of loftiness to every sensation that he 
indulges, and thus conceives with much force the more 
majestic passions at the same time that he is raised above 
the pathetic passions, which always carry with them an 
air of weakness and humility. 

For the expression of the loftier emotions no actor is 
gifted by nature with greater external means. His figure 
though not elegant is manly and dignified, his features are 
strongly marked with what is called the Roman character, 
and his head altogether is the heroic head of the antiquary 
and the artist. This tragic form assumes excellently well 

265 



266 MR KEMBLE 

the gait of royalty, the vigorous majesty of the warrior, 
and the profound gravity of the sage : but its seriousness is 
unbending ; his countenance seems to despise the gaiety it 
labours to assume, and its comic expression is comic 
because it is singularly wretched. Of the passion of love 
he can express nothing ; the reason is obvious. Love 
from its dependent nature must always, unless associated 
with some other passion, betray an expression of tender 
feebleness, and such an expression is unknown to Mr 
Kemble's countenance. The attempt of Mrs Tnchbald 
to make Mr Kemble a lover is more honourable to her 
partiality for the friend than to her affection for just 
criticism. She says, that he can paint love more vigor- 
ously than any other man, though he cannot love moder- 
ately : in her opinion, " sighs, soft complainings, a plaintive 
voice, and tender looks bespeak mere moderation ; Mr 
Kemble," she continues, " must be struck to the heart's 
core, or not at all : he must be wounded to the soul with 
grief, despair, or madness." But this is mistaking the 
associated passion for its companion. What a lover is he 
who can neither speak softly nor look tenderly ? No man 
according to this idea can express a perfect love, that is, 
a love opposed to mere moderation, unless he is struck with 
grief, or desperate, or mad : but by such an association of 
outrageous passions the expression of the individual one 
will not be a perfect, because it is not a simple expression : 
the actor who cannot express an individual passion without 
the assistance of others can no more be said to be master of 
that passion, than a singer can be called a master of his art 
who cannot sing without an accompaniment. 

It is in characters that are occupied with themselves 
and with their own importance, it is in the systematic 
and exquisite revenge of Zanga, in the indignant jealousy 
of Othello, and in the desperate ambition of King John, 
that Mr Kemble is the actor. There is always something 



MR KEMBLE 267 

sublime in the sudden completion of great objects, and 
perhaps there is not a sublimer action on the stage than the 
stride of Mr Kemble as Zanga, over the body of his victim, 
and his majestic exultation of revenge. 

But if he succeeds in the prouder passions, his diligence 
of study has given him no less success in the expression of 
impressive seriousness. 

The character of Penruddock in The Wheel of Fortune is 
his greatest performance, and I believe it to be a perfect 
one. It is admirable, not because the tenderness of his 
love, as Mrs Inchbald tells us, " appears beneath the 
roughest manners," but because the very defect which 
hurts his general style of acting, that studious and im- 
portant preciseness, which is affectation in all his other 
characters, contributes to the strength, to the nature of 
Penruddock. Those who can discern any peculiar ex- 
pression of tenderness under the roughness of Mr Kemble' s 
acting mistake their feelings for their observation : it is 
the tenderness the character is supposed to feel, not what 
he actually exhibits, it is the tenderness of the author, not 
of the actor, which they discern ; if there are one or two 
phrases of tenderness uttered by the stern recluse, they 
have a pathetic effect not because they are expressed with 
a peculiar tenderness by the actor, but because a soft 
emotion so unexpected in one of his appearance produces 
a strong effect from the strength of contrast. To give a 
man imaginary praise is to give him real dispraise. Mr 
Kemble himself would never think of valuing his own 
performance for its tenderness of expression ; he would 
value it, and with justice, for its severity of expression, for 
its display of external philosophy, and for its contempt of 
everything that can no longer amuse. 

Wherever this air of self-importance or abstraction is 
required, Mr Kemble is excellent. It is no small praise 
to say of an actor that he excels in soliloquies : these 



268 MR KEMBLE 

solitary discourses require great judgment because the 
speaker has no assistance from others, and because the 
audience, always awake to action, is inclined during a 
soliloquy to seek repose in inattention. Indeed to gain 
the attention of an audience is always in some degree to 
gain their applause, and this applause must cheerfully be 
given to Mr Kemble, who by his busy air and impressive 
manner always attaches importance to a speech of what- 
ever interest or length. To this excellence in particular 
and to the general action of the stage he contributes by an 
exact knowledge of every stage artifice local and temporal, 
and I could not but admire the judicious contrivance by 
which he added a considerable interest to his first appear- 
ance in the season of 1805 ; the curtain rose and discovered 
a study ; it was adorned with the most natural literary 
disorder possible : the grave actor appeared writing at a 
table with open books here and there about him ; the 
globes, the library, the furniture, everything had its use, 
and no doubt its effect, for an audience, though perhaps 
insensibly, is always pleased with a natural scene. Of 
another necessary stage artifice, which is called bye-play, 
and which beguiles the intervals of action by an air of 
perpetual occupation, he is a perfect master ; he never 
stands feebly inactive, waiting for his turn to speak ; he is 
never out of his place, he attends to everything passing on 
the stage at once, nor does he indulge himself in those 
complacent stares at the audience which occupy inferior 
actors. 

This attention to the minute, however, is often employed 
needlessly ; he has made it a study hardly less important 
than that of the passions, and hence arises the great fault of 
his acting, a laborious and almost universal preciseness. 
Some of the instances of this fault are so ludicrous that a 
person who had not seen him would scarcely credit the re- 
lation : he sometimes turns from one object to another with 



MR KEMBLE 269 

so cautious a circumflexion of head, that he is no doubt very 
often pitied by the audience for having a stiff neck ; his 
words now and then follow one another so slowly, and his 
face all the while assumes so methodical an expression, that 
he seems reckoning how many lines he has learnt by heart ; 
I have known him make an eternal groan upon the inter- 
jection Oh /, as if he were determined to show that his 
misery had not affected his lungs ; and to represent an 
energetical address he has kept so continual a jerking and 
nodding of the head, that at last if he represented anything 
at all, it could be nothing but Saint Vitus's dance : by this 
study of nonentities it would appear that he never pulls out 
his handkerchief without a design upon the audience, that 
he has as much thought in making a step as making a 
speech, in short, that his very finger is eloquent and that 
nothing means something. But all this neither delights nor 
deceives the audience : of an assembly collected together to 
enjoy a rational entertainment, the majority will always be 
displeased with what is irrational, though they may be un- 
able to describe their sensations critically : irrationalities 
amuse in farce only. An audience when judging the 
common imitations of life have merely to say, "Is it like 
ourselves ? ' ' 

Perhaps there is not a greater instance of the ill effects 
one bad habit, like this, can produce, than in Mr Kemble's 
delivery. No actor in his declamation pleases more at some 
times or more offends at others. His voice is hollow and 
monotonous from a malformation, as it is said, of his organs 
of utterance : its weakness cannot command a variety of 
sound sufficiently powerful for all occasions, nor is its 
natural extent melodious or pleasing ; but a voice naturally 
monotonous must be distinguished from a monotony of 
delivery ; the latter neglects emphasis and expression, the 
former, though it will not always obtain, may always attempt 
both. No player perhaps understands his author better, 



270 MRKEMBLE 

and such a knowledge will easily impart itself to others : 
his declamation, therefore, is confident and exact, he is at 
all times carefully distinct, and his general delivery is 
marked, expressive, and even powerful : the art with which 
he supplies the natural weakness of his voice by an energy 
and significancy of utterance is truly admirable. But the 
same affectation, which indulges itself in an indiscriminate 
importance of manner, the same ambition of originality 
where originality is least wanted, characterises Mr Kemble's 
pronunciation : it has induced him to defy all orthoepy and 
to allow no accent but what pleases his caprice or his love 
of innovation. To be novel for the mere sake of novelty 
belongs neither to genius nor to judgment. Mr Kemble in- 
sists that the word rode should be rod, beard is metamor- 
phosed into bird, he never pierces the heart but purses it, 
and virtue and merchant become in the dialect of the kitchen 
varchue and marchant ; the strong syllable er appears to be 
an abomination, and is never allowed utterance ; Pope 
says 

To err is human, to forgive divine — 

but Mr Kemble will not consent to this, he says 
To air is human — 

making the moralist say, that it is the nature of man to dry 
his clean shirt or to take a walk : thy is changed into the 
probably because the sound of my is sometimes contracted 
into me ; but mutabilities of pronunciation in one word never 
argue for them in another ; people are not accustomed to 
say, such a man has a wri neck, or that it is very dre 
weather. Dr Johnson who had an antipathy to the short 
pronunciation wind and wished to call it wind, attacked the 
custom by a ludicrous assemblage and mispronunciation of 
other words, in which the letter /' is naturally long, and 
said with much critical gravity, — " / have a mind to find 
why you call that wind" But this pleasantry did not 



MR KEMBLE 271 

change the pronunciation in general converse. Let us see 
how. Mr Kemble would improve the following lines : we 
will put his improvement, after the original, since the beauty 
of the contrast will be greater : 

Virtue, thy happy wisdom's known 
In making what we wish our own ; 
Nay, e'en to wish what wishes thee 
Imparts the blest reality: 
For since the soul that pierces mine, 
Sweet Myra's soul, is full of thine, 
In my breast too thy spirit stirs, 
Since all my soul is full of her's. 

Mr Kemble's improvement — 

Farchue, the happy wisdom's known 
In making what we wish our own ; 
Nay, e'en to wish what wishes thee 
Imparts the blest reality: 
For since the soul that purses mine ; 
Sweet Myra's soul, is full of thine, 
In my breast too thy spirit stares y 



Since all my soul is full of h 






This is very amusing, but there is no rule for pronuncia- 
tion but custom ; as customs change, actors may change ; 
but no individual should alter what he has no reason for 
altering, or what has either a bad effect or none at all when 
altered. There have been several attempts to vary the 
mode of spelling now in use ; the latest innovation was 
practised by Ritson, a man of curious and happy research 
into old English literature, and one who might have boasted 
a better originality than that of making his words unin- 
telligible : nobody has adopted a single one of these innova- 
tions, first because it is painful to depart from old rules and 
habits, and secondly, because it is still more painful to 
depart from them without a cause. For the same reasons 
nobody will adopt Mr Kemble's pronunciations, and if he 
were to carry his "dialect into private life, he would be 



272 MR CHARLES KEMBLE 

either pitied or laughed at. But why place his ambition 
where there are no hopes of original praise ? I could mis- 
pronounce much better than he, when I was a mere 
infant. 

Upon the whole Mr Kemble appears to be an actor of 
correct rather than quick conception, of studious rather 
than universal or equal judgment, of powers some naturally 
defective but admirably improved and others excellent by 
nature but still more so by art ; in short of a genius more 
compulsive of respect than attractive of delight. He does 
not present one the idea of a man who grasps with the force 
of genius, but of one who overcomes by the toil of attention. 
He never rises and sinks as in the enthusiasm of the 
moment ; his ascension though grand is careful, and when 
he sinks it is with preparation and dignity. There are 
actors who may occasionally please more, but not one who 
is paid a more universal or profound attention. 



MR CHARLES KEMBLE 

I do not know what thoughtlessness or forgetfulness 
could have possessed me, when I proposed to class this 
elegant actor with the tragedians only. I must have been 
seized with a little of that langour, which is his worst 
affectation, and which is as infectious in an actor as in a 
supper of lettuces. But how could I forget his occasional 
vivacity, his occasional dry humour, and his inimitable 
pictures of intoxication, so natural and yet never disgusting ; 
not to mention his frequent awfulness of frown, which is 
infinitely droll, though he does not know it. 

Mr Charles Kemble excels in three classes of character ; 
in the tender lover like Romeo, in the spirited gentleman of 



MR CHARLES KEMBLE 273 

tragedy, such as Laertes and Faulconbridge, and in a very 
happy mixture of the occasional debauchee and the gentle- 
man of feeling, as in Shakspeare's Cassio and Charles 
Oakley in the Jealous Wife. 

In theatric love, in that complaining softness with which 
the fancies of young ladies adorn their imaginary heroes, 
Mr Charles Kemble is certainly the first performer on the 
stage. He seems resolved to make up for his brother's 
utter deficiency in this respect. His performance of Romeo 
would undoubtedly be superior to that of Mr Elliston, 
could he shake off his indolent languor. Fondness of 
attitude and looks of abstracted endearment acquire an 
additional charm, from his dignified and graceful aspect 
and from that reposing command in the air of his head and 
shoulders, which reminds us of the placid dignity of the 
Antinous. But this languor is occasionally so unhappy, 
that his attention to his mistress appears to be a painful 
effort, and instead of being tender from amatory feeling 
betrays a kind of civil pity for the poor lady, the true com'is 
in uxor em of Horace. 

That this weariness or affected patience of manner is not 
natural to the actor, but the mere result of bad habit, may be 
easily seen in the animation of his Laertes and his Faulcon- 
bridge. If in the former character he has little to display 
but personal spirit, in the latter he exhibits a very bold 
spirit of raillery, a gay insolence justified by the contempti- 
bility of its object. It is with much skill that he suddenly 
bursts into a proud ridicule of the Duke of Austria, without 
indulging in the flourish of fist which common actors mis- 
take for indignation : he does not, like a South Sea warrior, 
waste half his strength on the enemy by a preliminary 
bravado of gesture. All great effects are produced by 
contrast. Anger is never so noble as when it breaks out 
of a comparative continence of aspect ; it is the earthquake 
bursting from the repose of nature. 

s 



274 MR CHARLES KEMBLE 

One could not well excuse, even in tragedy, that 
perpetual lightning of frown with which Mr Charles 
Kemble pierces the pit ; and as to his perpetual bite of the 
lips, it is allowable to nobody but a young lady preparing 
her rosiest looks for company, or to a malicious and mean 
villain suddenly detected, or to a schoolboy perhaps when 
he is winding up his top. But this cloudiness of face, this 
system of frowning and biting is wonderfully misplaced in 
comedy ; the vipsXyyepera Zsug, the cloud-compelling 
Jove, is not the god of levity. What with the lamps and 
the rouge, his eyes may indeed acquire much ferocious 
decision and brightness, but he would lose no reputation by 
leaving to Mr H. Johnston the judgment of turning mere 
" meditation to madness." A frank youth, like Frederick 
Bramble in the Poor Gentleman, a character which Mr C. 
Kemble otherwise performs with most appropriate spirit, 
never thinks of this gloomy stare, which amounts to the 
expression of an afflicted conscience ; nor does a gay 
villain, like Plastic in Town and Country, make his 
resolutions with a countenance that might betray him to 
the slightest observer. Mr C. Kemble's ironical contempt 
of Reuben Glenroy's advice in this character, and of Sir 
Charles Cropland in Frederick Bramble, is in the happiest 
wonderment of tone : his languor becomes a beauty when 
thrown into the careless slur and patient acquiescence of his 
replies. Any cool humourist would talk in the same 
way. But what should we think of a man, who when he 
was meditating on the choice of a watch-string should dart 
into the most terrific side-frowns ; or when he was asked 
whether he preferred pudding or pie, should knit his brows 
into an agony of logical doubt ? 

Guest (after frowning with downward meditation") . 
Madam, I will take a little pie — (aside, after receiving the 
pie and frowning with awful study). I am not sure that 
pudding wouldn't have been better. 



MR CHARLES KEMBLE 275 

I was sorry to see that Mr C. Kemble could not help 
carrying this ludicrous fault into his most careless intoxica- 
tion : his representation of a superior sort of drunkard 
would otherwise be perfect. It is this representation which 
renders his Charles Oakley and his Cassio such finished and 
original performances. To amuse us, and at the same time 
to maintain bur respect in intoxication, might be thought an 
impossibility, if he did not do both in these characters. 
But with all that relaxation of limb, which seems so 
destructive of gentlemanly appearance, with all that relaxa- 
tion of countenance which is the very reverse of sensible 
expression, with all that gay disdain of common customs 
and civilities which wine inspires, he contrives not only to 
appear respectable but even to interest our feelings. I have 
seen him, when representing a fond husband who had been 
seduced into a debauch, absolutely borrow a pathos from 
this odious vice, and in the midst of his careless nonsense 
turn to his wife with a voice so quarrelling with himself, so 
broken between gaiety and remorse, so painful in its 
attempt to be strongly affectionate, that the contrast of his 
graces with his defects, of his powers with his wishes, of 
his love for his wife and his heartfelt inability to express it, 
reached all the domestic feelings of his audience. It is the 
same with his Cassio, whose remorse appears so much the 
stronger from his inability to rid himself of the debauch 
which he abhors. There is no actor, who imitates this 
defect with such a total want of affectation. All the other 
performers wish to be humorous drunkards, and by this 
error they cannot help showing a kind of abstract reasoning 
which defeats their purpose. They play a hundred antics 
with legs which a drunkard would be unable to lift, they 
make a thousand grimaces which the jaws of a drunkard 
could not attempt from mere want of tone ; they roll about 
from place to place, though his whole strength is exerted 
to command his limbs ; they wish in short to appear 



276 MR CHARLES KEMBLE 

drunk, when the great object of a drunkard is to appear 
sober. 

Mr Charles Kemble is upon the whole a very gentle- 
manly and useful actor, with much of graceful mediocrity 
and with an occasional display of great genius. It appears 
to me, that his unfortunate languor hides his real ability, 
and that, like a giant oppressed with sleepiness, he sinks to 
the level of feebler men. When I call him a useful actor, 
I do not apply the epithet like those newspapers, who 
bestow it on every actor that can do a number of things 
tolerably, and nothing well. Not that I would question, as 
to matters of stage convenience, the utility, much less the 
genius of any gentleman, who would undertake to read a 
book at a moment's notice : but Mr C. Kemble is useful to 
the audience, as well as to the managers ; if he undertakes 
a character not originally his own, he gives us its moral 
effects as well as its discourse ; he gives us not only the 
face but the soul of his person, not only its gesticulation 
but its proper impulse. A bad actor may be denned as an 
animal, who utters a certain number of sounds to exercise 
the patience of a certain number of people. 




To write a criticism on Mrs Siddons is to write a panegyric, 
and a panegyric of a very peculiar sort, for the praise will 
be true. Like her elder brother she has a marked and 
noble countenance and a figure more dignified than graceful, 
and she is like him in all his good qualities but not any of 
his bad ones. If Mr Kemble studiously meditates a step 
or an attitude in the midst of passion, Mrs Siddons never 
thinks about either and therefore is always natural, because 
on occasions of great feeling it is the passions should in- 
fluence the actions : attitudes are not to be studied, as old 
Havard used to study them, between six looking-glasses : 
feel the passion and the action will follow. I know it 
has been denied that actors sympathise with the feelings 
they represent, and among other critics, Dr Johnson is 
supposed to have denied it. The Doctor was accustomed 
to talk very loudly at the play upon divers subjects, even 
when his friend Garrick was electrifying the house with 
his most wonderful scenes, and the worst of it was that he 
usually sat in one of the stage boxes : the actor remonstrated 

277 



278 MRS SIDDONS 

with him one night after the representation, and complained 
that the talking "disturbed his feelings:" " Phsanv ! 
David," replied the critic, "Punch has no feelings." But 
the Doctor was fond of saying his good things as well as 
lesser geniuses, and to say a good thing is not always to say 
a true one or one that is intended to be true. To call his 
friend a puppet, to give so contemptuous an appellation to 
a man whose powers he was at other times happy to 
respect, and whose death he lamented as having " eclipsed 
the gaiety of nations," must be considered as a familiar 
pleasantry rather than a betrayed opinion. The best way 
to solve the difficulty is to apply to an actor himself, but as 
I am not in the way of such an application, I think the 
complaint made by Garrick will do as well, since he talks 
of his feelings, as the means necessary to his performance. 
It appears to me, that the countenance cannot express a 
single passion perfectly, unless the passion is first felt : it is 
easy to grin representations of joy, and to pull down the 
muscles of the countenance as an imitation of sorrow, but a 
keen observer of human nature and its effects will easily 
detect the cheat ; there are nerves and muscles requisite 
to expression, that will not answer the will on common 
occasions ; but to represent a passion with truth, every 
nerve and muscle should be in its proper action, or the 
representation becomes weak and confused, melancholy is 
mistaken for grief, and pleasure for delight : it is from this 
feebleness of emotion so many dull actors endeavour to 
supply passion with vehemence of action and voice, as 
jugglers are talkative and bustling to beguile scrutiny. I 
have somewhere heard, that Mrs Siddons has talked of the 
real agitation which the performance of some of her char- 
acters has made her feel. 

To see the bewildered melancholy of Lady Macbeth 
walking in her sleep, or the widow's mute stare of perfected 
misery by the corpse of the gamester Beverley, two of the 



MRS SIDDONS 279 

sublimest pieces of acting on the English stage, would 
argue this point better than a thousand critics. Mrs 
Siddons has the air of never being the actress ; she 
seems unconscious that there is a motley crowd called 
a pit waiting to applaud her, or that there are a dozen 
fiddlers waiting for her exit. This is always one of 
the marks of a great actor : the player who amuses him- 
self by looking at the audience for admiration may be 
assured he never gets any : it is in acting as in conferring 
obligations : one should have the air of doing nothing for 
a return. 

If Mrs Siddons has not every single requisite to a perfect 
tragedian, it is the amatory pathetic : in the despair of 
Belvidera for instance she rises to sublimity, but in the 
tenderness of Belvidera she preserves too stately and self- 
subdued an air : she can overpower, astonish, afflict, but 
she cannot win ; her majestic presence and commanding 
features seem to disregard love, as a trifle to which they 
cannot descend. But it does not follow that a tragedian 
unable to sink into the softness of the tender passion, is 
the more to be respected for his undeviating dignity and 
spirit : it does not follow that he has a loftier genius ; 
love though humble never moves our contempt ; on the 
contrary it adds new interest to a character at other times 
dignified : in real life the greatest heroes and sages have 
acquired an extraordinary charm from their union of 
wisdom and tenderness, of conquest and gallant sub- 
mission : and as we doubly admire the wise Plato for 
his amatory effusions and the chivalrous spirit of Henry 
the Great for the tenderness of his love, so on the stage the 
tragedian, who unites the hero and the lover, that is, who 
can display either character as it is required, is the more 
admirable genius. Besides, the figure of Mrs Siddons is 
now too large and too matronly to represent youth, and 
particularly the immediate passions of youth ; we hope 



2 8o MRS SIDDONS 

that by the next season she will have given up the per- 
formance of characters suited neither to her age nor her 
abilities. 

After this one defect I have in vain considered and 
reconsidered all the tragedies, in which I have seen her, 
to find the shadow of another. She unites with her 
noble conceptions of nature every advantage of art, every 
knowledge of stage propriety and effect. This know- 
ledge however she displays not with the pompous minute- 
ness of Mr Kemble, but with that natural carelessness, 
which shows it to be the result of genius rather than 
grave study. If there is a gesture in the midst, or an 
attitude in the interval of action, it is the result of the 
impassioned moment ; one can hardly imagine, there has 
been any such thing as a rehearsal for powers so natural 
and so spirited. Of the force of such mere action I 
recollect a sublime instance displayed by Mrs Siddons in 
the insipid tragedy of The Grecian Daughter. This 
heroine has obtained for her aged and imprisoned father 
some unexpected assistance from the guard Philotas : 
transported with gratitude, but having nothing from the 
poet to give expression to her feelings, she starts with 
extended arms and casts herself in mute prostration at 
his feet. I shall never forget the glow which rushed 
to my cheeks at this sublime action. 

These are the effects Mr Kemble should study, and 
not the clap-provoking frivolities of ending every speech 
with an energetic dash of the fist, or of running off the 
stage after a vehement declamation as if the actor was 
in haste to get his pint of wine. If the brother and 
sister are compared the palm both of genius and of judg- 
ment must undoubtedly be given to Mrs Siddons : I 
question whether she understands her authors so inti- 
mately, but she gives double effect to their important 
passages, and their unimportant ones are allowed to sink 



MRS SIDDONS 281 

into their proper mediocrity : where everything is raised 
into significance, the significance is destroyed. If an 
artist would study the expression of the passions, let him 
lay by the pictures of Le Brun, and copy the looks of 
Mrs Siddons. 




One of the most amiable effects of the modern drama is to 
injure those to whom it is most indebted for support. If 
the principal characters of Reynolds and of Dibdin are 
always out of nature, their representation, as I have already 
hinted, must be unnatural also ; and as our comic actors are 
perpetually employed upon these punchinellos, as they are 
always labouring to grimace and grin them into applause, 
they become habituated and even partial to their antics, and 
can never afterwards separate the effect from the means, the 
applause from the unnatural style of acting. The extrava- 
gance therefore of look and gesture, so necessary to the 
caricatures of our farci-comic writers, they cannot help 
carrying into the characters of our best dramatists, to which 
it is every way injurious. 

This is the great fault of Mr Munden, who is unluckily 
one of the strongest supports to our gigantic farces, and 
whose powers, like his features, have been so twisted out of 
their proper direction, that they seem unable to recover 
themselves. Almost the whole force of his acting consists 
in two or three ludicrous gestures and an innumerable 
variety of as fanciful contortions of countenance as ever 
threw woman into hysterics : his features are like the 
282 



MRMUNDEN 283 

reflection of a man's face in a ruffled stream, they undergo 
a perpetual undulation of grin : every emotion is attended 
by a grimace, which he by no means wishes to be con- 
sidered as unstudied, for if it has not immediately its effect 
upon the spectators he improves or continues it till it has ; 
and I have seen his interlocutor disconcerted, and the per- 
formance stopped, by the unseasonable laughter of the 
audience, who were conquered into the notice of a post- 
humous joke by this ambitious pertinacity of muscle. 

All this suits admirably well with a character entirely 
farcical, or with one that has no intrinsic humour, and I 
recollect no actor who by the mere abuse of his features 
could gain so much favour for a modern comedy. If ever 
such an abuse becomes natural, it is in the deformity of 
drunkenness. Mr Munden, therefore, whose action is as 
confined as his features are vagrant, excels in the relaxed 
gesture and variable fatuity of intoxication. His most 
entertaining performances are always of this kind, as that 
for instance, of Crack in the Turnpike Gate and the Captain's 
servant in the musical puppetshow called the English Fleet. 
His attitude and looks in the latter piece, when he receives a 
ring from a lady as a reward for some courageous service, 
his tottering earnestness in contemplating the honour on his 
finger, and the conscious glance which he turns now and 
then at his captain behind him, exhibit a masterpiece of 
drunken vanity. These are the touches which brighten the 
miserable daubs of our dramatists, which throw life into 
their inanimate figures, and character into their half- formed 
countenances. Mr Munden, in his imitation of an intoxi- 
cated man, always shows his judgment by standing as much 
as possible in one place. Our actors in general seem to 
forget that a person under the influence of liquor, unless he 
is almost insensible, always attempts a command of himself 
and restrains his motions as much as the weakness of his 
limbs will permit ; they are too fond of reeling round the 



284 MRMUNDEN 

stage, and jerking up one leg at every step, like a tavern 
blood affecting his six bottles. I have heard that the late 
Mr Suett used always to be really drunk when he performed 
a drunkard, but the generality of our performers may cer- 
tainly be exculpated from such a charge : perhaps the only 
actor who approaches Munden in this exquisite display of 
brutality is Mr Robert Palmer. Truly we stage critics 
treat of lofty matters ! 

But of simplicity Mr Munden shows not a shadow ; and 
as old men in general, and particularly old soldiers and 
citizens, have long forgotten the antics of schoolboys, this 
perpetual mouth-making destroys his natural representation 
of age : no man in years accompanies his whole conversa- 
tion with this harmony or rather this discord of feature ; an 
old soldier would despise it as boyish, and an old citizen as 
unprofitable : an old courtier, perhaps, if his king is fond of 
buffoonery, is more likely to accommodate his countenance 
to the sallies of those about him, but when Mr Munden 
represents Polonius, he forgets he is in a gloomy court, 
where the king and queen are afflicted with melancholy and 
the young prince Hamlet supposed to be deranged. In his 
performance of Menenius in Coriolanus, this buffoonery is 
still more inconsistent. Menenius was a man of wit and 
prudence, and is celebrated in history for his fable of the 
belly and the members, with which he appeased the dis- 
cordant divisions of the people : Shakspeare, taking 
advantage of the familiarity of that popular address, has 
perhaps rendered the language and the manners of Menenius 
too generally familiar, and given the comedian an oppor- 
tunity of displaying his merriment rather too broadly ; but 
it should never be forgotten that Menenius was not only of 
the patrician order, a class of men proverbially haughty, but 
that he was the intimate friend of the haughty Coriolanus, 
who was the proudest man in Rome and not very likely 
to associate with buffoons. If Shakspeare therefore, in 



MR MUNDEN 285 

his fondness for generalising the character of men and in his 
determination to avoid what may be called a chronology of 
nature, has represented Menenius in the light of a merry old 
modern nobleman, the actor would show his art and his 
classical judgment in preventing his mirth from extravagance 
by every possible temperance of action, so that the man of 
humour might not entirely overcome the man of rank. At 
any rate, Mr Munden should endeavour to moderate the 
restlessness of his muscles in representing a patrician and a 
senator. But then the galleries would not laugh. 

This actor in short loses half his proper effect by the 
very strength of his powers : he brings as much expression 
into his face for an emotion or even an innuendo, as he 
ought for the liveliest passions : thus he rarely gives us the 
shadows or gradations of feeling, from the mere exertion 
of his expression : he is a jumper, who in order to leap 
four yards, takes a spring that inevitably carries him six : 
he is like that poetical artist Mr Fuseli, who to exhibit 
his anatomical skill discloses every joint and muscle of a 
clothed figure, when he should merely shadow out their 
appearances. 

Strange ! By the means defeated of the ends ! 




Those comedians are infinitely mistaken, who imagine that 
mere buffoonery or face-making is a surer method of 
attaining public favour than chastened and natural humour. 
A monstrous grin, that defies all description or simile, may 
raise a more noisy laughter, but as I have before observed, 
the merest pantomime clown will raise a still noisier : 
laughter does not always express the most satisfied enjoy- 
ment, and there is something in the ease and artlessness of 
true humour that obtains a more lasting though a more 
gradual applause : it is like a rational lover, who allows 
confidence and extravagant mirth to catch a woman's eye 
first, but wins his way ultimately from the very want of 
qualities which please merely to fatigue. While such an 
actor therefore as Dowton will attempt buffooneries in 
which he neither can nor ought to succeed, it is no small 
credit to Mr Mathews, that he has the judgment to avoid 
in general what he really can exhibit with the greater 
effect. This is the proper pride of an actor who has a 
greater respect for the opinion of the boxes than of the 
286 



MR MATHEWS 287 

galleries ; this is the laudable ambition that would rather be 
praised by those who are worthy of respect themselves than 
by a clamorous mob who in fact applaud their own likeness 
in the vulgarity and nonsense so boisterously admired. 

Such a judgment is the more praise-worthy in Mr Mathews, 
as his principal excellence is the representation of officious 
valets and humorous old men, two species of character that 
with most actors are merely buffoons in livery and buffoons 
with walking-sticks. His attention to correctness however 
by no means lessens his vivacity, but it is the vivacity of the 
world not of the stage ; it seems rather his nature than his 
art, and though I daresay all actors have their hours of 
disquiet, and perhaps more than most men, yet he has not 
the air of one who elevates his sensations the moment he 
enters the stage and drops them the instant he departs. It 
is a very common and a very injurious fault with actors to 
come before the audience with a manner expressive of 
beginning a task ; they adjust their neckcloths and hats as 
if they had dressed in a hurry, look about them as much as 
to say, " What sort of a house have I got this evening ? " 
and commence their speeches in a tone of patient weariness, 
as if they contemplated the future labours of the evening. 
This is a frequent error with Mr H. Johnston, and a most 
peculiar one with Mr C. Kemble, who often seems to have 
just arrived from a fatiguing walk. Mr Mathews makes 
his appearance neither with this indifference on the one 
hand, nor on the other with that laboured mirth which 
seems to have been lashed into action like a top and which 
goes down like a top at regular intervals. If therefore he 
does not amaze like many inferior actors with sudden bursts 
of broad merriment, he is more equable and consistent in 
his humour and inspires his audience with a more constant 
spirit of chearfulness. Such a chearfulness is the most 
desirable effect in every comic performer, and this feeling 
is one of the sensations which render us more truly pleased 



288 MR MATHEWS 

with comedy than with farce : it is more agreeable to 
reason, because it leaves room for thinking ; it is removed 
from violence, which always carries a degree of pain into 
the more exquisite pleasures ; it is more like the happiness 
that we may attain in real life, and therefore more fitted to 
dispose us to an enjoyment of our feelings. 

The principal fault in the general style of Mr Mathews 
is a redundancy of bodily motion approaching to restlessness, 
which I have sometimes thought to have been a kind of 
nervousness impatient of public observation ; but I think he 
has repressed this considerably within these few months, 
and if it be owing to want of confidence, the stage is not a 
place to increase any of the more bashful feelings. This 
fault however, like Mr Kemble's stiffness in Penruddock, 
becomes a beauty in his performance of the restless Lying 
Valet, and of Risk in Love laughs at Locksmiths, who are 
both in a perpetual bustle of cheating and contrivance. 
Possibly it may be the frequency of his performance in 
characters of intrigue that originally led him to indulge it, 
for there is yet another character, that of the intriguing 
servant in the farce of Catch him tvho Can, in which he is 
at full liberty to indulge it. In this servant he gives a 
specimen of that admirable power of mimicry, in which he 
rivals Mr Bannister. I believe there were many in the 
theatre who had much difficulty to recognise him in his 
transformation into the Frenchman, and for alteration of 
manner, tone, and pronunciation it certainly was not 
inferior to the most finished deceptions of that great 
comedian. As this kind of deception indeed depends 
chiefly upon a disguise of the voice, one would imagine it 
ought not to be very difficult to an actor, one of whose first 
powers should be a flexibility of tone ; but this flexibility 
becomes valuable on our stage for its rarity, for it is curious 
enough to observe, that we have not a single tragedian or 
female performer who can at all disguise the voice, and of 



MR MATHEWS 289 

all our comedians, who really ought to excel in this point, 
Mr Bannister and Mr Mathews seem the only two who can 
thus escape from themselves with any artifice : many of the 
comic actors, as Munden, Simmons, Blanchard, Liston, 
Johnstone, Wewitzer, and particularly Fawcett, seem 
blessed with such honest throats as to be incapable of the 
slightest deception. 

The old age of Mr Mathews is like the rest of his 
excellences, perfectly unaffected and correct ; the appear- 
ance of years he manages so well, that many of his admirers, 
who have never seen him off the stage, insist that he is an 
elderly man, and the reason of this deception is evident : 
most of our comedians in their representation of age either 
make no alteration of their voice, and like antiquarian cheats, 
palm a walking-stick or a hat upon us for something very 
ancient, or sink into so unnatural an imbecility that they are 
apt on occasion to forget their tottering knees and bent 
shoulders, and like Vertumnus in the poet are young and 
old in the turn of a minute. Mathews never appears to 
wish to be old ; time seems to have come to him, not he to 
time, and as he never, where he can avoid it, makes that 
show of feebleness which the vanity of age always would 
avoid, so he never forgets that general appearance of years, 
which the natural feebleness of age could not help. Our 
old men of the stage are in general of one unvarying age 
in all their various characters, as in the case of Munden for 
instance, who though he imitates the appearance of a hearty 
old gentleman with much nature, is seldom a jot the older 
or the younger than his usual antiquity, whatever the author 
might have led us to imagine. The two characters of Don 
Manuel in She Would and She Would Not and of Old Phil- 
pot in the Citizen are sufficient examples of the ease with 
which Mr Mathews alters his years and of the general 
excellences of his old age. In the former piece he is a 
naturally chearful old man, whose humour depends much 

T 



2 9 o MR MATHEWS 

on the humour of others, and who is overcome alternately 
with gaiety and with despair, as he finds himself treated by 
those about him. The voice of Mr Mathews, were we to 
shut our eyes, would be enough to convince us of his age 
in this character, and of his disposition too ; there is some- 
thing in it unaccountably petty and confined, while at the 
same time it appears to make an effort of strength and 
jollity, and when his false pitch of spirits meets with a sud- 
den downfall, nothing can be more natural than the total 
dissolution of his powers of voice, or the restless despondency 
with which he yields himself to a hundred imaginary 
miseries : when his spirits are raised again and his exces- 
sive joy gradually overcomes itself by its own violence, the 
second exertion of his fatigued talkativeness and of his 
excessive laughter reduces him to mere impotence ; he sinks 
into his chair ; and in the last weariness of a weak mind 
and body, cannot still refrain from the natural loquacity of 
old age, but in the intervals of oppressed feeling attempts 
to speak when he has not only nothing to say, but when it 
is perfectly painful to him to utter a word. In this char- 
acter therefore, Mr Mathews exhibits all the gradations of 
the strength and weakness of declining years ; in that of 
Philpot, he settles himself into a confirmed and unresisting 
old age : his feeble attitudes, his voice, his minutest actions, 
are perfectly monotonous, as become a money -getting 
dotard, whose soul is absorbed in one mean object : his 
limbs contracted together are expressive of the selfish close- 
ness of the miser, and in his very tone of utterance, so 
sparing of its strength and so inward, he seems to retire into 
himself. 

From the general performances however of Mr Mathews, 
I had been induced to consider him as an actor of habits 
rather than of passions ; and as the present essay originally 
stood, I had classed him in a rank much inferior to Bannister 
and Dowton. But one of his late performances raised his 



MR MATHEWS 291 

genius so highly in my estimation, that I cancelled the 
original paragraph on purpose to do justice to his Sir 
Fretful Plagiary in the Critic, to a performance which has 
proved his knowledge of the human heart, has given its true 
spirit to one of the most original characters of the first wit 
of our age, and has even persuaded the ancient dramatic con- 
noisseurs to summon up the claps of former times : nay, 
some of the old gentlemen, in the important intervals of snuff, 
went so far as to declare that the actor approached Parsons 
himself. We are generally satisfied, when an actor can ex- 
press a single feeling with strength of countenance ; but to 
express two at once, and to give them at the same time a 
powerful distinctness, belongs to the perfection of his art. 
Nothing can be more admirable than the look of Mr 
Mathews, when the severe criticism is detailed by his 
malicious acquaintance. While he affects a pleasantry of 
countenance, he cannot help betraying his rage in his eyes, 
in that feature which always displays our most predominant 
feelings : if he draws the air to and fro through his teeth, 
as if he was perfectly assured of his own pleasant feelings, 
he convinces every body by his tremulous and restless limbs 
that he is in absolute torture ; if the lower part of his face 
expands into a painful smile, the upper part contracts into a 
glaring frown which contradicts the ineffectual good humour 
beneath ; every thing in his face becomes rigid, confused, 
and uneasy ; it is a mixture of oil and vinegar, in which the 
acid predominates : it is anger putting on a mask that is only 
the more hideous in proportion as it is more fantastic. The 
sudden drop of his smile into a deep and bitter indignation, 
when he can endure sarcasm no longer, completes this 
impassioned picture of Sir Fretful ; but lest his indignation 
should swell into mere tragedy, Mr Mathews accompanies it 
with all the touches of familiar vexation : while he is vent- 
ing his rage in vehement expressions, he accompanies his 
more emphatic words with a closing thrust of his buttons, 



292 MR MATHEWS 

which he fastens and unfastens up and down his coat ; and 
when his obnoxious friend approaches his snuff-box to take 
a pinch, he claps down the lid and turns violently off with 
a most malicious mockery of grin. These are the perfor- 
mances and the characters, which are the true fame of actors 
and dramatists. If our farcical performers and farcical writers 
could reach this refined satire, ridicule would vanish before 
them, like breath from a polished knife. 



OT^THS T^nK£lS{Cf OF 




There is no greater mistake in the world than the looking 
upon every sort of nonsense as want of sense. Nonsense 
in the bad sense of the word, like certain suspicious ladies, 
is very fond of bestowing its own appellation, — particularly 
upon what renders other persons agreeable. But nonsense, 
in the good sense of the word, is a very sensible thing in its 
season ; and is only confounded with the other by people of 
a shallow gravity, who cannot afford to joke. 

These gentlemen live upon credit, and would not have it 
enquired into. They are perpetual beggars of the question. 
They are grave, not because they think, or feel the contrast 
of mirth, for then they would feel the mirth itself; but 
because gravity is their safest mode of behaviour. They 
must keep their minds sitting still, because they are incapable 
of a motion that is not awkward. They are waxen images 
among the living ; — the deception is undone, if the others 
stir ; — or hollow vessels covered up, which may be taken for 



294 THE TALKING OF NONSENSE 

full ones : — the collision of wit jars against them, and strikes 
out their hollowness. 

In fact, the difference between nonsense not worth talk- 
ing, and nonsense worth it, is simply this : — the former is 
the result of a want of ideas, the latter of a superabundance 
of them. This is remarkably exemplified by Swift's Polite 
Conversation, in which the dialogue, though intended to be 
a tissue of the greatest nonsense in request with shallow 
merriment, is in reality full of ideas, and many of them very 
humorous ; but then they are all common-place, and have 
been said so often, that the thing uppermost in your mind is 
the inability of the speakers to utter a sentence of their own ; 
— they have no ideas at all. Many of the jokes and similes in 
that treatise are still the current coin of the shallow ; though 
they are now pretty much confined to gossips of an inferior 
order, and the upper part of the lower classes. 

On the other hand, the wildest rattling, as it is called, in 
which men of sense find entertainment, consists of nothing 
but a quick and original succession of ideas, — a finding as it 
were, of something in nothing, — a rapid turning of the 
hearer's mind to some new face of thought and sparkling 
imagery. The man of shallow gravity, besides an uneasy 
half-consciousness that he has nothing of the sort about him, 
is too dull of perception to see the delicate links between 
one thought and another ; and he takes that for a mere chaos 
of laughing jargon, in which finer apprehensions perceive as 
much delightful association, as men of musical taste do in the 
most trick some harmonies and accompaniments of Mozart 
or Beethoven. Between such gravity and such mirth, there 
is as much difference as between the driest and dreariest 
psalmody, and that exquisite laughing trio, — E voi ridete, — 
which is sung in Cost Fan Tutte. A quaker's coat and a 
garden are not more dissimilar ; — nor a death-bell, and the 
birds after a sunny shower. 

It is on such occasions indeed that we enjoy the perfection 



THE TALKING OF NONSENSE 295 

of what is agreeable in humanity, — the harmony of mind 
and body, — intellect, and animal spirits. Accordingly the 
greatest geniuses appear to have been proficients in this kind 
of nonsense, and to have delighted in dwelling upon it, and 
attributing it to their favourites. Virgil is no joker, but 
Homer is ; and there is the same difference between their 
heros, iEneas and Achilles, the latter of whom is also a 
player on the harp. Venus, the most delightful of the 
goddesses, is Philommeides, the laughter-loving; — an epithet, 
by the bye, which might give a good hint to a number of 
very respectable ladies, " who love their lords," but who are 
too apt to let ladies less respectable run away with them. 
Horace represents Pleasantry as fluttering about Venus in 
company with Cupid, — 

Quern Jocus circumvolat, et Cupido ; 

and these are followed by Youth, the enjoyer of animal 
spirits, and by Mercury, the god of persuasion. There is 
the same difference between Tasso and Ariosto as between 
Virgil and Homer ; that is to say, the latter proves his 
greater genius by a completer and more various hold on the 
feelings, and has not only a fresher spirit of Nature about 
him, but a truer, because a happier ; for the want of this 
enjoyment is at once a defect and a deterioration. It is 
more or less a disease of the blood ; — a falling off from the 
pure and uncontradicted blithesomeness of childhood ; a 
hampering of the mind with the altered nerves; — dust 
gathered in the watch, and perplexing our passing hours. 
It may be thought a begging of the question to mention 
Anacreon, since he made an absolute business of mirth and 
enjoyment, and sat down systematically to laugh as well as 
to drink. But on that very account, perhaps, his case is still 
more in point ; and Plato, one of the gravest, but not the 
shallowest, of philosophers, gave him the title of the Wise. 
The disciple of Socrates appears also to have been a great 



SE 



296 THE TALKING OF N ONSEN 

enjoyer of Aristophanes ; and the divine Socrates himself 
was a wit and a joker. 

But the divine Shakspeare ; — the man to whom we go for 
everything, and are sure to find it, grave, melancholy, or 
merry, — what said he to this exquisite kind of nonsense ? 
Perhaps next to his passion for detecting nature, and over- 
informing it with poetry, he took delight in pursuing a joke ; 
and the lowest scenes of his in this way say more to men 
whose faculties are fresh about them, and who prefer enjoy- 
ment to criticism, than the most doting of commentators can 
find out. They are instances of his animal spirits, — of his 
sociality, — of his passion for giving and receiving pleasure, — 
of his enjoyment of something wiser than wisdom. 

The greatest favourites of Shakspeare are made to 
resemble himself in this particular, Hamlet, Mercutio, 
Touchstone, Jaques, Richard the Third, and FalstafF, 
" inimitable Falstaff," are all men of wit and humour, 
modified according to their different temperaments or cir- 
cumstances, — some from health and spirits, others from 
sociality, others from a contrast with their very melancholy. 
Indeed melancholy itself, with the profoundest intellects, 
will rarely be found to be anything else than a sickly tem- 
perament, induced or otherwise, preying in its turn upon 
the disappointed expectations of pleasure, — upon the contra- 
diction of hopes, which this world is not made to realize, 
though (let us never forget) it is made, as they themselves 
prove, to suggest. Some of Shakspeare's characters, as 
Mercutio and Benedick, are almost entirely made up of wit 
and animal spirits ; and delightful fellows they are ; and 
ready, from their very taste, to perform the most serious 
and manly offices. Most of his women too have an 
abundance of natural vivacity. Desdemona herself is so 
pleasant of intercourse in every way, that upon the principle 
of the respectable mistakes above-mentioned, the Moor, 
when he grows jealous, is tempted to think it a proof of 



THE TALKING OF NONSENSE 297 

her want of honesty. But we must make Shakspeare speak 
for himself, or we shall not know how to be silent on this 
subject. What a description is that which he gives of a 
man of mirth, — of a mirth, too, which he has expressly stated 
to be within the limit of what is becoming ? It is in Loves 
Labour Lost : — 

" A merrier man, 
Within the limit of becoming mirth, 
I never spent an hour's talk withall, 
His eye begets occasion for his wit : 
For every object that the one doth catch, 
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest ; 
Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor, 
Delivers in such apt and gracious words, 
That aged ears play truant at his tales, 
And younger hearings are quite ravished ; 
So sweet and voluble is his discourse." 

We have been led into these reflections, partly to introduce 
the conclusion of this article, — partly from being very fond 
of a joke ourselves, and so making our self-love as proud as 
possible, — and partly from having spent some most agreeable 
hours the other evening with a company, the members of 
which had all the right to be grave and disagreeable that 
rank and talent are supposed to confer, and yet from the 
very best sense or forgetfulness of both, were as lively and 
entertaining to each other as boys. Not one of them 
perhaps but had his cares,- — one or two, of no ordinary 
description ; but what then ? These are the moments, if 
we can take advantage of them, when sorrows are shared, 
even unconsciously ; — moments, when melancholy intermits 
her fever, and hope takes a leap into enjoyment ; — when the 
pilgrim of life, if he cannot lay aside his burden, forgets it 
in meeting his fellows about a fountain ; and soothes his 
weariness and his resolution with the sparkling sight, and 
the noise of the freshness. 

To come to our anticlimax, for such we are afraid it 



JSE 



298 THE TALKING OF NONSEN 

must be called after all this grave sentiment and mention of 
authorities. The following dialogue is the substance of a 
joke (never meant for its present place) that was started 
the other day upon a late publication. The name of the 
book it is not necessary to mention, especially as it was pro- 
nounced to be one of the driest that had appeared for years. 
We cannot answer for the sentences being put to their proper 
speakers. The friends, whom we value most, happen to be 
great hunters in this way ; and the reader may look upon 
the thing as a specimen of a joke run down, or of the sort 
of nonsense above mentioned ; so that he will take due care 
how he professes not to relish it. We must also advertise 
him, that a proper quantity of giggling and laughter must be 
supposed to be interspersed, till towards the end it gradually 
becomes too great to go on with. 

A. Did you ever see such a book ? 

B. Never, in all my life. Its as dry as a chip. 

A. As a chip ? A chip's a slice of orange to it. 

B. Ay, or a wet sponge. 

A. Or a cup in a currant tart. 

B. Ah, ha ; so it is. You feel as if you were fingering 
a brick-bat. 

A. It makes you feel dust in the eyes. 

B. It is impossible to shed a tear over it. The lachrymal 
organs are dried up. 

A. If you shut it hastily, it is like clapping together a 
pair of fresh-cleaned gloves. 

B. Before you have got far in it, you get up to look at 
your tongue in a glass. 

A. It absolutely makes you thirsty. 

B. Yes : — if you take it up at breakfast, you drink four 
cups instead of two. 

A. At page 30 you call for beer. 

B. They say it made a Reviewer take to drinking. 

A. They have it lying on the table at inns to make you 



THE TALKING OF NONSENSE 299 

drink double. The landlord says, " A new book, Sir," and 
goes out to order two neguses. 

B. It dries up everything so, it has ruined the draining 
business. 

A. There is an Act of Parliament to forbid people's 
passing a vintner's with it in their pockets. 

B. The Dutch subscribed for it to serve them instead of 
dykes. 




A RAPTURE TO THE MEMORY OF MATHIAS CORVINUS, KING AND 

BOOKBINDER BOOKBINDING GOOD AND BAD ETHIOPICS 

OF HELIODORUS STRIKING ACCOUNT OF RAISING A DEAD 

BODY. 

Glory be to the memory of Mathias Corvinus, King of 
Hungary and Bohemia, son of the great Huniades, and 
binder of books in vellum and gold. He placed fifty 
thousand volumes, says Warton, " in a tower which he had 
erected in the metropolis of Buda : and in this library he 
established thirty amanuenses, skilled in painting, illumi- 
nating, and writing, who under the conduct of Felix 
Ragusinus, a Dalmatian, consummately learned in the 
Greek, Chaldaic, and Arabic languages, and an elegant 
designer and painter of ornaments on vellum, attended 
incessantly to the business of transcription and decoration. 
The librarian was Bartholomew Fontius, a learned Floren- 
tine, the writer of many philological books, and a professor 
of Greek and oratory at Florence. When Buda was taken 
by the Turks in the year 1526, Cardinal Bozmanni offered, 
for the redemption of this inestimable collection, two hundred 
thousand pieces of the imperial money : yet without effect ; 
for the barbarous besiegers defaced or destroyed most of the 
300 



BOOKBINDING 301 

books, in the violence of seizing the splendid covers and the 
silver bosses and clasps with which they were enriched. The 
learned Obsopaeus relates, that a book was brought him by 
an Hungarian soldier, which he had picked up with many 
others, in the pillage of King Corvino's library, and had 
preserved as a prize, merely because the covering retained 
some marks of gold and rich workmanship. This proved 
to be a manuscript of the Ethiopics of Heliodorus ; from 
which in the year 1534, Obsopaeus printed at Basil the first 
edition of that elegant Greek romance." 1 

Methinks we see this tower, — doubtless in a garden, — the 
windows overlooking it, together with the vineyards which 
produced the Tokay that his majesty drank while reading, 
agreeably to the notions of his brother bookworm, the King 
of Aragon. The transcribers and binders are at work 
in various apartments below ; midway is a bath, with an 
orangery ; — and up aloft, but not too high to be above the 
tops of the trees through which he looks over the vineyards 
towards his beloved Greece and Italy, in a room tapestried 
with some fair story of Atalanta or the Golden Fleece, sits 
the king in a chair-couch, his legs thrown up and his face 
shaded from the sun, reading one of the passages we are 
about to extract from the romance of Heliodorus, — some 
illumination in which casts up a light on his manly beard, 
tinging its black with tawny. 

What a fellow! — Think of being king of the realms of 
Tokay, and having a library of fifty thousand volumes in 
vellum and gold, with thirty people constantly beneath you, 
copying, painting, and illuminating, and every day sending 
you up a fresh one to look at ! 

We were going to say, that Dr Dibdin should have 
existed in those days, and been his majesty's chaplain, or 
his confessor. But we doubt whether he could have borne 
the bliss. ( Vide his ecstasies, passim, on the charms of 

1 History of English Poetry, Edition of 1840, Vol. II. p. 552. 



302 BOOKBINDING 



vellums, tall copies, and blind tooling.) Yet, as confessor 
and patron, they would admirably have suited. The doctor 
would have continually absolved the king from the sin of 
thinking of his next box of books during sermon-time, or 
looking at the pictures in his missal instead of reading it ; 
and the king would have been always bestowing benefices 
on the doctor, till the latter began to think he needed 
absolution himself. 

Not being a King of Hungary, nor rich, nor having a 
confessor to absolve us from sins of expenditure, how lucky 
is it that we can take delight in books whose outsides are of 
the homeliest description ! How willing are we to waive 
the grandeur of outlay ! how contented to pay for some 
precious volume a shilling instead of two pounds ten ! Bind 
we would, if we could : — there is no doubt of that. We 
should have liked to challenge the majesty of Hungary to 
a bout at bookbinding, and seen which would have ordered 
the most intense and ravishing legatura ; something, at 
which De Seuil, or Grollier himself, should have 

" Sigh'd, and look'd, and sigh'd again"; — 

something that would have made him own, that there was 
nothing between it and an angel's wing. Meantime, nothing 
comes amiss to us but dirt, or tatters, or cold, plain, calf, 
school binding, — a thing which we hate for its insipidity and 
formality, and for its attempting to do the business as 
cheaply and usefully as possible, with no regard to the 
liberality and picturesqueness befitting the cultivators of the 
generous infant mind. 

Keep from our sight all Selectee e Profanis, and Enfield? s 
Speakers, bound in this manner ; and especially all Ovids, 
and all Excerpta from the Greek. We would as lief see 
Ovid come to life in the dress of a Quaker, or Theocritus 
serving in a stationer's shop. (See the horrid, impossible 
dreams, which such incoherences excite !) Arithmetical 



BOOKBINDING 303 

books are not so bad in it ; and it does very well for the 
Ganger s Vade Mecum, or tall thin copies of Logarithms ; 
but for anything poetical, or of a handsome universality like 
the grass or the skies, we would as soon see a flower white- 
washed, or an arbour fit for an angel converted into a 
pew. 

But to come to the book before us. See what an 
advantage the poor reader of modern times possesses over 
the royal collector of those ages, who- doubtless got his 
manuscript of Heliodorus's romance at a cost and trouble 
proportionate to the splendour he bestowed on its binding. 
An " argosie " brought it him from Greece or Italy, at a 
price rated by some Jew of Malta ; or else his father got 
it with battle and murder out of some Greek ransom of a 
Turk ; whereas we bought our copy at a bookstall in Little 
Chelsea for tenpence ! To be sure it is not in the original 
language ; nor did we ever read it in that language ; neither 
is the translation, for the most part, a good one : and it is 
execrably printed. It is "done," half by a "person of 
quality," and half by Nahum Tate. There are symptoms 
of its being translated from an Italian version ; and perhaps 
the good bits come out of an older English one, mentioned 
by Warton. 

The (Ethiopics or (Ethiopian History of Heliodorus, 
otherwise called the Adventures of Theagenes and Chariclea, 
is a romance written in the decline of the Roman Empire 
by an Asiatic Greek of that name, who boasted to be 
descended from the sun (Heliodorus is sun-given), and 
who afterwards became Christian bishop of Tricca in 
Thessaly. It is said (but the story is apocryphal) that 
a synod, thinking the danger of a love romance aggravated 
by this elevation to the mitre, required of the author that 
he should give up either his book or his bishopric ; and 
that he chose to do the latter ; — a story so good that it is 
a pity one must doubt it. The merits and defects of the 



304 BOOKBINDING 

work have been stated at length by Mr Dunlop, 1 apparently 
with great judgment. They may be briefly summed up, as 
consisting, — the defects, in want of character and pro- 
bability, sameness of vicissitude and inartificiality of ordon- 
nance ; the merits, in an interesting and gradual develop- 
ment of the story, variety and vivacity of description, 
elegance of style, and one good character, — that of the 
heroine, who is indeed very charming, being " endued with 
great strength of mind, united to a delicacy of feeling, and 
an address which turns every situation to the best advan- 
tage." The work also abounds in curious local accounts of 
Egypt, and of the customs of the time, interesting to an 
antiquary. 

The impression produced upon our own mind after reading 
the version before us, accorded with Mr Dunlop's criticism, 
and was a feeling betwixt confusion and delight, as if we 
had been witnessing the adventures of a sort of Grecian 
Harlequin and Columbine, perpetually running in and out 
of the stage, accompanied by an old gentleman, and pursued 
by thieves and murderers. The incidents are most gratuitous, 
but often beautifully described, and so are the persons ; and 
the work has been such a general favourite, that the sub- 
sequent Greek romancers copied it ; the old French school 
of romance arose of it ; it has been used by Spenser, Tasso, 
and Guarini ; imitated by Sydney in his Arcadia ; painted 
from by Raphael ; and succeeding romancers, with Sir 
Walter Scott for the climax, have adopted from it the 
striking and picturesque nature of their exordiums. 

The following is one of the two subjects chosen by 
Raphael, — a description of a love at first sight, painted with 
equal force and delicacy. A sacrificial rite is being per- 
formed, at which the hero of the story first meets with the 
heroine : — 

" This he said, and began to make the offering : while 
1 History of Fiction, Second edition, Vol. I. p. 30. 



BOOKBINDING 305 

Theagenes took the torch from the hands of Chariclea. 
Sure, Knemon, that the soul is a divine thing, and allied 
to the superior nature, we know by its operations and 
functions. As soon as these two beheld each other, their 
souls, as if acquainted at first sight, pressed to meet their 
equals in worth and beauty. At first they remained amazed 
and without motion ; at length, though slowly, Chariclea 
gave, and he received the torch ; so fixing their eyes on 
one another, as if they had been calling to remembrance 
where they had met before, then they smiled, but so 
stealingly, as it could hardly be perceived, but a little in 
their eyes, and as ashamed, they hid away the motions 
of joy with blushes ; and again, when affection (as I 
imagine) had engaged their hearts, they grew pale." — 
p. 109. 

But what we chiefly wrote this article for, was to lay 
before the reader a most striking description of a witch 
raising the dead body of her son, to ask it unlawful 
questions. The heroine and her guardian, who are rest- 
ing in a cave to which the hag has conducted them 
while benighted, become involuntary witnesses of the 
scene, which is painted with a vigour worthy of Spenser 
or Julio Romano. The old wretch, bent on her un- 
hallowed purposes, forcing the body to stand upright, 
and leaping about a pit and a fire with a naked sword 
in her hand and a bloody arm, presents a rare image of 
withered and feeble wickedness, made potent by will : — 

" Chariclea sat down in another corner of the cell, the 
moon then rising and lightening all without. Calasiris fell 
into a fast sleep, being tired at once with age and the long 
journey. Chariclea, kept awake with care, be.came spectator 
of a most horrid scene, though usual among those people. 
For the woman supposing herself to be alone, and not likely 
to be interrupted, nor so much as to be seen by any person, 
fell to her work. In the first place she digged a pit in the* 

v 



3 o6 BOOKBINDING 

earth, and then made a fire on each side thereof, placing the 
body of her son between the two plains ; then taking a 
pitcher from off a three-legged stool that stood by, she 
poured honey into the pit, milk out of a second, and so out 
of a third, as if she had been doing sacrifice. Then taking 
a piece of dough, formed into the likeness of a man, crowned 
with laurel and bdellium, she cast it into the pit. After 
this, snatching a sword that lay in the field, with more than 
Bacchanal fury (addressing herself to the moon in many 
strange terms) she launched her arm, and with a branch of 
laurel bedewed with her blood, she besprinkled the fire : 
with many other prodigious ceremonies. Then bo-wing herself 
to the body of her son, whispering in his ear, she awakened 
him, and by the force of her charms, made him to stand 
upright. Chariclea, who had hitherto looked on with 
sufficient fear, was now astonished ; wherefore she waked 
Calasiris to be likewise spectator of what was done. They 
stood unseen themselves, but plainly beheld, by the light of 
the moon and fire, where the business was performed ; and 
by reason of the little distance, heard the discourse, the 
beldam now bespeaking her son in a louder voice. The 
question which she asked him was, if her son, who was yet 
living, should return safe home ? To this he answered 
nothing ; only nodding his head, gave her doubtful con- 
jectures of his success ; and therewith fell flat upon his face. 
She turned the body with the face upwards, and again repeat- 
ing her question, but with much greater violence uttering many 
incantations ; and leaping up and down with the sword in her 
hand, turning sometimes to the fire, and then to the pit, she 
once more awakened him, and setting him upright, urged him 
to answer her in plain words, and not in doubtful signs. In 
the meantime Chariclea desired Calasiris, that they might go 
nearer, and inquire of the old woman about Theagenes : but 
he refused, affirming that the spectacle was impious ; that it 
"'was not decent for any person of priestly office to be present, 



BOOKBINDING 307 

much less delighted with such performances ; that prayers and 
lawful sacrifices were their business ; and not with impure 
rites and inquiries of death, as that Egyptian did, of which 
mischance had made us spectators. While he was thus speak- 
ing, the dead person made answer, with a ho/low and dreadful 
tone : ' At first I spared you, mother (said he), and suffered 
your transgressing against human nature and the laws of 
destiny, and by charms and witchcraft disturbing those 
things which should rest inviolated : for even the dead 
retain a reverence towards their parents, as much as is 
possible for them ; but since you exceed all bounds, being 
not content with the wicked action you began, nor satisfied 
with raising me up to give you signs, but also force me, a 
dead body to speak, neglecting my sepulture, and keeping me 
from the mansion of departed souls : hear those things which 
at first I was afraid to acquaint you withal. Neither your 
son shali return alive, nor shall yourself escape that death 
by the sword, which is due to your crimes ; but conclude 
that life in a short time, which you have spent in wicked 
practices : forasmuch as you have not only done these things 
alone, but made other persons spectators of these dreadful 
mysteries that were so concealed in outward silence, acquaint- 
ing them with the affairs and fortunes of the dead. One of 
them is a priest, which makes it more tolerable ; who knows 
by his wisdom, that such things are not to be divulged ; — a 
person dear to the Gods, who shall with his arrival prevent 
the duel of his sons prepared for combat, and compose their 
difference. But that which is more grievous is, that a virgin 
has been spectator of all that has been done, and heard what 
was said : a virgin and lover, that has wandered through 
countries in search of her betrothed ; with whom,, after 
infinite labours and dangers, she shall arrive at the outmost 
part of the earth, and live in royal state.' Having thus 
said, he again fell prostrate. The hag being sensible who 
were the spectators, armed as she was with a sword, in a 



3 o8 BOOKBINDING 

rage sought them amongst the dead bodies where she thought 
they lay concealed, to kill them, as persons who had invaded 
her, and crossed the operation of her charms. While she 
was thus employed, she struck her groin upon the splinter 
of a spear that stuck in the ground, by which she died ; 
immediately fulfilling the prophecy of her son." 

This surely is a very striking fiction. We recommend 
the whole w r ork to the lovers of old books ; and must not 
forget to notice the pleasant surprise expressed by Warton 
at the supposed difference of fortune between its author who 
lost a bishopric by writing it, and Amyot, the Frenchman, 
who was rewarded with an abbey for translating it. Amyot 
himself afterwards became a bishop. We may add, as a 
pleasant coincidence, that it was one of Amyot's pupils and 
benefactors, — Henry the Second, — who gave a bishopric to 
the lively Italian novelist, Bandello. Books were books in 
those days, not batches, by the baker's dozen, turned out 
every morning ; and the gayest of writers were held in 
serious estimation accordingly. 




ATREAXISB ON DEVILS 



It is much easier to conceive a good spirit than a bad one, 
not only because the latter is useless and his sufferings 
absurd (nature refusing to allow of suffering beyond a 
certain pitch, and no infliction of ill warranting or making 
reasonable a further and worse infliction, except for the 
good of all parties), but because malignity, which is a devil's 
characteristic, and which is understood to mean the love of 

309 



310 A TREATISE ON DEVILS 

injuring another for the injury's sake, is found, upon a due 
knowledge of evil and its causes, to be a thing altogether 
fictitious and impossible. The worst of men does not 
injure another because, abstractedly, he would do him a 
mischief, but in order to get rid of some pressure of evil 
upon himself. Take the envious man, the revengeful, the 
murderer for the sake of gain, — or what seems worst of all, 
the murderer for the sake of murder — and, tracing the 
causes of his offence with a humane and a thoughtful eye, 
we shall find that it is out of some imaginary disadvantage, 
some sense of infelicity or inequality, or some morbid want 
of excitement, frightening the poor inconsiderate wretch 
himself even more than he frightens others, that induces 
him, under the notion or the impulse of procuring relief to 
his own desires, to thrust his evil upon the head of another. 
And the worse and more wicked we could suppose a 
creature to be, the more (not to speak it profanely) would 
be his excuse ; because the more dreadful would be the 
disadvantage under which he lay, the more tormenting his 
infelicity, and the more grievous (if it could never be made 
smooth for him) his wrong. Pain, like a heap of brambles, 
shows us our departure from a right path ; and melancholy 
it seems that pain should be necessary, even supposing it to 
exist only in the younger period or first renewals of a 
world, after some catastrophe interrupting its bliss, and 
before the new wilderness can be cleared ; but as all evils 
are not so evil as we suppose them, so we know from all 
that we can know (and nothing gives us a right to pro- 
nounce further, especially in contumely of what is good) 
that the worst evils are fugitive, and the greatest crimes 
are mistakes. For all these reasons (the world feeling 
them more and more as it grows enlightened), there comes 
up by degrees a suspicion that it is better to say as little as 
possible, in a serious way, of such anomalies as devils : — in 
a little while people are allowed to doubt them, then to 



A TREATISE ON DEVILS 311 

laugh at them, and finally, except among the grossly 
ignorant or supepstitious, devils remain fit subjects for 
nothing but jests, and caricature, and the voluntary gravity 
of the black-lettered. 

As to those writers and others, who continue to preach 
a doctrine which they despise, out of a notion that the 
delusion is necessary to mankind, — that men are so wicked 
as to require terrors to keep them in awe, — and other half 
reasonings of that sort, it is a great presumption in them, in 
the first place, to assume a privilege of exemption from 
those duties of veracity to which they would fain tie the 
rest of the world ; and, secondly, they harm their own 
natures by it, and maintain themselves in an ill opinion of 
the world in which they take themselves to be the wisest 
persons. They rule it (as they think) by falsehood, and 
yet are weak enough to lament that it is as bad and false as 
it is, and a "vale of tears." Now, the world is neither so 
bad nor so unhappy as many suppose it, though, assuredly, 
there is sorrow enough in it to make us anxious to wipe the 
tears out of its eyes ; but this is not to be done by the use 
of the very falsehood we lament, by adding to what is 
already evil in the world, — melancholy and perplexing 
ideas of things beyond it, and all this at a time when, the 
delusion being discovered, the signal is given for its destruc- 
tion. As men, let us think none of us exempt from the 
virtues and sincerity of men ; nor, by taking ourselves for 
the gods of the foolish, imagine we must have devils to 
keep the peace for us. Truth will do very well without 
them, if we suffer it to take its course. Are we to suppose 
ourselves better and wiser than all which it may find 
out for us ? Who has given us the clew to discover 
that ? 

With regard to the existence of one supreme devil, or 
conscious and wilful Principle of Evil (which has been 
doubted by the most orthodox, upon a due consideration of 



312 A TREATISE ON DEVILS 

texts and Scripture), 1 it is not only contradictory to the 
received opinions respecting the omnipotence and benefi- 
cence of the Deity, but is a superfluity in common reason- 
ing ; for as it is a maxim in logic, that when anything can 
be accounted for on one principle, it need not have recourse 
to another, and as it ought equally to be a maxim in 
common-sense to choose the more agreeable principle of 
the two, it is much better to refer the origin of evil to that 
inert and insensible part of matter of which Plato speaks, 
and the hardness of which causes a difficulty in. the working 
it, than to set up, for the amusement of sluggish imagina- 
tions, the terrors of feeble ones, and the poor views of the 
worldly, a gratuitous malignant spirit, equally absurd 
whether we consider the attributes of God or the neces- 
sities of common reason. And herein the celebrated living 
writer, who is as delightful in fiction as he appears shal- 
low in philosophy, and who has addressed a book to a 
little child in which he condescends to preach the horrible 
doctrine of hell torments, ought, we think, to have a deep 

1 As in the very word devil, which is a translation of the Testa- 
ment, is assumed to be the meaning of the Greek word diabolos, 
though the letters signify an accuser, and admirably fit the passage 
in that sense. For instance, — li Be sober, be vigilant," says the 
Apostle, " for your adversary the accuser walks about, seeking 
whom he may devour." What can be better than this construc- 
tion, or more natural in addressing a letter to an infant com- 
munity, bound to be on their good behaviour ? and why should 
the word be translated devil? So in the famous passage in Fsaiah, 
where the King of Babylon is so nobly apostrophised under the 
title of Lucifer, or the light-bringer. son of the morning. Why 
should this be tortured into a prophecy of the devil, and the 
morning star be made synonymous with an imaginary infernal 
being? It appears to us that a book written expressly on the 
subject, with the proper requisites of learning and philosophy, 
might now settle the pretensions of this infernal personage 
forever We should envy the composer of such a work, and 
would do our utmost to second his benefaction to mankind. 



A TREATISE ON DEVILS 313 

sense of his shame and humiliation : for it is either a great 
weakness in him or a great insincerity. He says, in the 
preface to one of his novels, with an escape of cunning, 
brought upon him by the mortified vanity of a failure, that 
he will never go counter to public opinion ; or, to use his 
own words, will never "sail against the stream." We 
need not say whether it is becoming in a man of genius to 
talk, in this manner, for whatever reason ; but it is one 
thing not to sail against the stream, and another to go 
down with it in the company of the small craft of ignorance 
and hypocrisy. Imagination, however, carries a blessing 
with it in its own despite ; and the magic vessel, in this 
instance, while the captain is thinking of nothing but the 
flag he has hoisted in favour of old prejudices, has a 
stock of humanities on board that shall still benefit the 
world. 

It hardly need be observed, at this time of day, that 
Milton's devil is no real devil, any more than his divinity is 
really divine. The divine things in Paradise Lost are the 
poetry and the humanity. As far as his devil partakes of 
these, the devil himself becomes divine ; and as far as his 
Deity wants them, we feel that nothing can be flatter or 
more ungodly. Milton laughed at the vulgar idea of the 
devil, and disdained to degrade his fallen Archangel into 
horns and a tail. Had he delayed writing his poem some 
years longer, there is reason to believe that he would have 
disdained to degrade his Deity into a " school divine " and 
a sorry tyrant,i or to think that spirits in a state of perfect 
bliss and virtue could fall. 2 Such a god is not the natural 

1 " And God the Father turns a school-divine." — Pope. 

2 a What to me is more wonderful," says the author of Robin- 
son Crusoe, "and which, I think, will be very ill accounted for, 
is: How came seeds of crime to rise in the angelic nature, 
created in a state of perfect, unspotted holiness? How was it 
first found in a place where no unclean thing can enter? How 



3i 4 A TREATISE ON DEVILS 

God of a great poet ; and from some remarkable evidences, 

not only in his later works, but that transpired on proving 

of his will, it appears certain that he retired more and more 

from the vulgarities that had been palmed upon his infancy 

into the sacred recesses of his own thought, and found 

there no longer an unworthy deity. He had "edified" a 

chapel to himself; 1 and the music of his own organ now 

ascended into a nobler sky, giving to his sightless eyeballs a 

right to look tranquil. 

No ; the only genuine devil now extant is the proper 

old woman's devil, with horns and a tail, and he begins 

exceedingly 

" To pale his ineffectual fire." 

The old women themselves desert him. He loses his 
believers by wholesale ; is a very sorry and poor devil, and 
people quote Burns, and wish him out of his durance. 
Formerly he was identified with emperors and archangels ; 
he was called the Prince of the Air ; he had all the spirits 
of the terrestrial world given him for subjects ; the whole 
Pagan mythology was turned over to him, and when gods 
were forgotten, devils were made out of the fairies. He is 
now " himself alone," deprived of his property, like Job, 
and sits amidst the ashes of his ruin in shabby misery. He 

came ambition, pride, or envy to generate there? Could there 
be offence where there was no crime? Could untainted purity 
breed corruption ? Could that nature contaminate and infect 
which was always drinking in principles of perfection ? 

" Happy it is to me that writing the history, not solving the 
difficulties of Satan's affairs, is my province in this work : that I 
am to relate fact, not give reasons for it or assign causes : if it 
was otherwise, I should break off at this difficulty, for I acknow- 
ledge I do not see through it : neither do I think that the great 
Milton, after all his fine images and lofty excursions upon the 
subject, has left it one jot clearer than he found it." — History of the 
Devil, p. 41. edit. 1777. 

1 " A littel wyde 
There was an holy chappel edifyde." — Spenser. 



A TREATISE ON DEVILS 315 

has lost even his power to joke, which was one of the 
ghastliest things about him. He no longer laughs, and 
says, Ho! Ho! like another Henry the Eighth. He has 
nothing to say it for. If he is still black as a coal, with 
talons and saucer eyes, he is also lean as a rake ; no longer 
fat, as when he used to have those delicious dinners with 
the old wives, like a favoured Methodist parson. His 
talons are of no use to him but to serve him like Job's ; 
and his saucer eyes now, indeed, for the first time, 

"Witness huge affliction and dismay," 

rolling about like a starved owl's in a trap, who has been 
caught there at noonday. 

Formerly he and his ministers were everywhere round 
about us, tempting us to ill, doing us all sorts of mischief, 
and laughing at it, and now and then raising storms of 
wind and rain, and thunder and lightning (which, not 
having been to school, they did not know were good things 
for us). The powers granted him were no less prodigious 
than odd. If you wished anything at the devil, he took it. 
He disputed possession of you with your good angel ; and 
a silly old woman, in whom indigestion confounded dream- 
ing with waking, and who went flying on the wings of her 
head vapours, had the power of making him a present of an 
immortal soul. What is more extraordinary, and shows us 
the danger of giving an inch of ground to assumptions and 
things unproved, is, that old women, both male and female, 
having much to do with education, they habituated some of 
the most exalted understandings to believe in these rascalities 
of superstition, and we should infallibly have all believed in 
them to this day had not the excess of the demand upon 
their credulity in some other matters roused men of spirit 
and genius to vindicate the invaluable right of doubting and 
inquiring, some of them (Luther for one) being all the 
while fastened with the grossest chains of superstition by 



3 i6 A TREATISE ON DEVILS 

the one hand, while they wrote against them triumphantly 
with the other. Let us be modest when we think of these 
things, but do not let us prove our modesty by adhering to 
errors upon which we have been enlightened. Let us 
reflect, rather, upon how many points we may still be 
mistaken, and resolve to carry on the good work of im- 
provement in which those illustrious men set us so noble an 
example. 

We lay before our readers some amusing extracts from 
an old writer, both serious and comic, which will show 
them what was thought of devils by the contemporaries of 
Shakspeare. Not that he believed in any such nonsense, 
though he knew how to turn the poetical parts of it to 
account ; and in matters of speculation, as well as practice, 
was doubtless the most undogmatical of men. He and the 
other great poets of that time were accused of being ex- 
ceedingly sceptical, and there is evidence in them to show 
that, in a proper sense of the word, the opinion was true. 
We do not make an exception of old Heywood, who was 
author of some beautiful simple dramas, and from whom 
the chief number of extracts are taken : for though a 
touching writer he was little of a poet. He had great 
feeling, but no imagination ; and it is not paradoxical to 
affirm that if he had finer eyes for fiction, he would have 
seen farther into truth. And so it is, vice versa, of the 
mechanical philosophers. But to the passages in question. 
The first is very ghastly, on account of the quiet familiarity 
of shape in which the alleged devil makes her entree. This 
is a great secret in horrid stories. 

" In the easterne part of Russia," saith Heywood, " about 
harvest time, a spirit was seen to walk at midday, like a 
sad, mourning widow ; and whosoever she met, if they did 
not instantly fall on their knees to adore her, they could 
not part with her without a leg or an arm broken, or some 
other as great mischiefe." — Hierarchie of Angels. 



A TREATISE ON DEVILS 317 

The chief of these noon-devils, according to the Rabbis, 
is a very singular personage. He has a head like that of a 
calf, with a horn shooting out of his forehead ; is all over 
ox's hair, full of eyes, and rolls along like a tub. 1 We shall 
take this opportunity of observing that, according to the 
Jews, all male devils have plenty of hair on their heads, 
while, on the contrary, female devils are bald. This is the 
reason, they say, why Boaz laid his hand on the head of 
Ruth. It was in order to assure himself that he had not a 
female devil in his chamber. 2 With us the shock would be 
great, but we should certainly acquit the lady of enchant- 
ment. No Christian would say, " Eh, you little devil ! " 
to a girl with a bald head. 

A Story out of Niderius. 

" Niderius telleth this story : In the borders of the king- 
dom of Bohemia lieth a valley, in which divers nights 
together was heard clattering of armour and clamours of 
men, as two armies had met together in picht battel. Two 
knights that inhabited near unto this prodigious place agreed 
to arm themselves and discover the secrets of this invisible 
army. The night was appointed, and, accommodated at all 
assayes, they rode to the place, where they might descry 
two battels ready ordered for present skirmish ; they could 
easily distinguish the colours and prevant liveries of every 
company ; but drawing neere, the one (whose courage began 
to relent) told the other that he had seene sufficient for his 
part, and thought it good not to dally with such prodigies ; 
wherefore, further than he was, he would not go. The 
other called him coward, and prickt on towards the armies, 
from one of which a horseman came forth, fought with him, 
and cut off his head. At which sight the other fled, and 
told the sight the next morning. A great confluence of 

1 Rabbinical Literature, vol. ii. p. 1 1 8. 2 Id.. p. 104. 



3 i8 A TREATISE ON DEVILS 

people, searching for the body, found it in one place, and 
the head in another ; but neither could discern the footing 
of horse or man, only the print of birds' feet, and those in 
miry places." — Hierarchle of Angels. 

This reminds us of the Tempter's Feast, in Milton, 
which vanishes, 

" With sound of harpies' wings and talons heard." 1 
Birds' and goats' feet were thought to be unalterable accom- 
paniments of devils, and rendered the boldest of them coy 
in their extremities. 

The following illustration, out of Heywood, of the 
promptitude of devils to avail themselves of any expression 
in their favour is one of the best stories about them we ever 
read. The reason is, that it is domestic, and touches upon 
the affections. The peril of the innocent and unconscious 
child in the hands of the swarthy visitors, furnishes a striking 
picture of contrast. 

The Black Dinner. 
" In Silesia, a nobleman having invited many guests to 
dinner, and prepared a liberal and costly feast for their 
entertainment, when all things were in great forwardness, 
instead of his friends whom he expected, he only received 
excuses from them that they could not keep his appoint- 
ment. Whereat the inviter, being horribly vexed, broke 
out into these words, saying, * Since all these men have 
thus failed me, I wish that so many devils of hell would 
feast with me to-day, and eat up the victuals provided for 
them ' ; and so in a great rage left the house, and went 
to church, where was that day a sermon ; his attention to 

1 Paradise Regained, Book ii. , v. 403. Warton observes upon this 
passage, "that the sound of the wings and talons is much finer 
than if the harpies had been seen, because the imagination is left 
at work, and the surprise is greater than if they had been men- 
tioned before." 



A TREATISE ON DEVILS 319 

.which having tooke away the greatest part of his choler, in 
the interim there arrived at his house a great troupe of 
horsemen, very blacke, and of extraordinary aspect and 
stature : who, alighting in the court, called to a groome to 
take their horses, and bade another servant run presently to 
his master and tell him his guests were come. The servant, 
amazed, runneth to church, and with that short breath and 
little sense he had left, delivers to his master what had 
happened. The lord calls to the preacher, and desiring 
him for that time to break off his sermon, and advise him 
by his ghostly counsel what was best to doe in so strict an 
exigent, hee persuades him, that all his servants should with 
what speed they can depart the house. In the mean time, 
they, with the whole congregation, come within view of the 
mansion : of which all his servants, as well men as maids, 
had with great affright delivered themselves, and for haste 
forgotten and left behind a young child, the nobleman's 
sonne, sleeping in his cradle. By this the devils were 
revelling in the dining-chamber, making a great noise, as if 
they had saluted and welcomed one another : and looked 
through the casements, one with the head of a beare, 
another a wolfe, a third a cat, a fourth a tygre, etc., filling 
bowls and quaffing as if they had drunke to the master of 
the house. By this time the nobleman, seeing all his 
servants safe, began to remember his sonne, and asked them 
' what had become of the child ' ? These words were 
scarce spoke, when one of the devils had him in his arms, 
and shewed him out of the window. The good man of 
the house at this sight being almost without life, spying an 
old faithful servant of his, fetched a deep sighe, and said, 
1 O me, what shall become of the infant ! ' The servant, 
seeing his master in that sad extasie, replied, ' Sir, by 
God's help I will enter the house, and fetch the childe out 
of the power of yon devils, or perish with him.' To whom 
the master said, ' God prosper thy attempt, and strengthen 



320 A TREATISE ON DEVILS 

thee in thy purpose.' Whereon, having taken a blessing , 
from the priest, he enters the house, and coming into the 
next room where the devils were then rioting, he fell upon 
his knees, and commended himself to the protection of 
heaven. Then pressing in amongst them, he beheld them 
in their horrible shapes, some sitting, some walking, some 
standing. Then they all came about him at once, and 
asked him what business he had there. He, in a great 
sweat and agonie (yet resolved in his purpose), came to 
that spirit which held the infant, and said, 'In the name of 
God, deliver this child to mee.' Who answered, ' No, but 
let thy master come and fetch him, who hath most interest in 
him.' The servant replied, * I am come to do that office 
and service which God hath called me, by virtue of which, 
and by his power, loe, I seize upon the innocent: and snatch- 
ing him from the divell, took him in his arms and carried him 
out of the roome. At which they clamoured and called 
after, * Ho, thou knave, ho, thou knave, leave the childe 
to us, or we will teare thee in pieces.' But he, unterrified 
with their diabolical menaces, brought away the infant, and 
delivered it safe to the father. After some few daies the 
spirits left the house, and the lord re-entered into his antient 
possession. In this discourse is to be observed, with what 
familiaritie these Familiar Spirits are ready to come, being 
invited." — Hierarchie of Angels. 

Chaucer has a pleasant story to similar purpose, which is 
too long to repeat : but we cannot resist giving an abstract. 
A summoner (a bailiff of the ecclesiastical court) riding out 
on his vacation, overtakes a yeoman under the trees, in a 
green cloak, also on horseback. He bids him good- 
morrow, and the yeoman asks him whether he means to go 
far that day. 

" This sompnour him answered, and said, •' Nay : — 
Here, fast by,' quoth he, ' is mine intent 
To riden, for to raisen up a rent. 



A TREATISE ON DEVILS 321 

That longeth to my lord his duety.' 

' Ah ! art thou then a bailiff? ' quoth he 

(He durst not, for very filth and shame, 

Say that he was a sompnour for the name), 

' De par Dieux ! ' quoth this yeoman, ' leve brother, 

Thou art a bailiff, and I'm another.'" 

The two horsemen get social, and the summoner asks 
the yeoman where he lives, in order that he may know 
how to find him. The yeoman " in soft speech," tells 
him that he lives " far in the North Countree " (the 
supposed quarter of the devils) : and adds, that he hopes to 
see him there shortly, and will give him such directions as 
he cannot possibly miss. 

After comparing notes, and agreeing that it is idle to 
have a conscience, the sompnour, who is very curious, 
requests to know his fellow's name. 

" This yeoman gan a little for to smile ; 

< Brother,' quoth he, ' wilt thou that I thee tell? 

I am a fend ; my dwelling is in hell : 

And here ride I about my purchasing^ 

To wot whether men ivill give me anything? " 

" Benedicite ! " cries the sompnour ; "what say ye ? " — 
The frightened church officer recovers himself, and after 
some conversation, they agree to stand by one another in 
their callings. The yeoman is to take whatever people 
give to him ; the summoner what he can get ; and if there 
is an overplus on either side, they are to share it. 

They come into a town, where a carman is swearing at 
his horses for not getting on with a load of hay : 

" Heit, Scot! heit, Brock ! what, spare ye for the stones ! 
The fiend (quoth he) you fetch, body and bones : 
The dev'l have all, both horse, and cart, and hay." 

The summoner wonders that his friend does not take the 
man at his word, and seize on the team ; but the devil tells 
him that he does not mean what he says, as he will see 
presently. 

x 



$12 A TREATISE ON DEVILS 

" 1 his carter thwacketh his horse, upon the croup, 
And they began to drawer and to stoop, 
Heit, now ! (quoth he) there — Jesus Christ you bless, 
And all his handy work, both more and less ! 
That was well twitch'd, mine own Hard 1 boy ; 
I pray God save thy body, and Saint Eloy." 

" There," said the devil, " you see ! " — The companions 
quit the town, and arrive at the hut of a poor widow, 
against whom the summoner has a warrant. He agrees to 
compound the matter, if she will give him twelve pence (a 
good sum in those days) : the poor woman protests that 
she could not raise such a sum in the whole world : the 
summoner gets enraged, says he will take away her " new 
pan," and calls her names : upon which the woman gets 
angry in turn, and wishes him at the devil. 

" Unto the devil, rough and black of hue, 
Give I thy body, and my pan also. 
And when the devil heard her cursen so 
Upon her knees, he said in this mannere: 
« Now, Mabily, mine own mother dear ; 
Is this your will in earnest that ye say? ' 
' The devil,' quoth she, ' so fetch him ere the day, 
And pan and all, but he will him repent.' 
' Nay, old stot, that is not mine intent,' 
Quoth this sompnour, ' for to repenten me 
For anything that I have had of thee : 
I would I had thy smock and every cloth.' 
' Now, brother,' quoth the devil, ' be not wroth : 
Thy body and this pan be mine by right, 
Thou shalt with me to helle yet to-night, 
Where thou shall knowen of our privity 
More than a master of divinity ' 
And with that would the foule fiend him hent : 
Body and soule he with the devil went." 

The devils formerly in request may be divided into ten 
classes : First, the old Oracular Devil, or Devil Pagan, 
who took upon himself to be Apollo or Jupiter, and is said 
1 Liard, a name for a gray horse. 



A TREATISE ON DEVILS 323 

to have occupied the shrines of those deities ; an opinion 
which good old Plutarch (who was, in fact, the Reverend 
Mr Plutarch, clergyman at Delphos) would have thought a 
blasphemy too horrible to be endured. 

Second, the Devil Vagabond, just mentioned, who went 
about seeking what he might devour, from a summoner 
down to a sauce-pan. He has since turned out to be a 
common shoplifter or thief; that is, when he takes a sauce- 
pan ; when he takes a summoner, he is an apoplexy. 

Third, the Possessing Devil, or Devil of the Exorcist, 
who was fond of inhabiting people's bodies, and made him- 
self famous among the nuns. This turned out to be the 
chaplain. 

Fourth, the Amatory Devil, or Incubus, who partook 
of the nature of the second, and who, according to Chaucer, 
had disappeared in his time, being displaced by the Friar ; 
at which period perhaps the word Incubus was first rendered 
Incumbent. He is still clerical sometimes, but oftener a 
layman ; and may be seen haunting milliner's apprentices 
down Regent Street, in the likeness of a foolish youth ; or 
standing at a tavern door, sly and stupid, eying the women's 
ankles as they pass. He is also the Nightmare. 

Fifth, the Devil Grim, or General Devil, who appeared 
in a proper diabolical shape, or was at least black and 
swarthy, and often went in a company, as may be seen in 
the story of the Black Dinner. He has totally dis- 
appeared. 

Sixth, the House Devil, or Devil Pranksome, with 
whom the Fairies were confounded. He was a minor kind 
of class the second, and contented himself with knocking 
and making a noise, displacing furniture, and making the 
good people " knowe not what to think." He has been 
discovered to be a maid-servant. 

Seventh, the Wayside, or Out-of-Door Devil, also con- 
founded with Fairies. He was a kind of Satyr.—" They 



324 A TREATISE ON DEVILS 

sit," quoth Burton, " by the highway side, to give men 
falls, and make their horses stumble and start as they ride 
(if you will believe the relation of that holy man Ketellus, 
in Nubrigensis, that had an especial grace to see devils). . . . 
If a man curse or spur his horse for stumbling, they do 
heartily rejoice at it ; with many such pretty feats." 1 

Eighth, the Necromancer's or Astrologer's Devil, who 
came up when he was called by art ; explained the mysteries 
of the universe ; was a great statesman ; and promised 
riches and power. Some of his tribe (to use the libellous 
language of those days) were " mighty Dukes " and 
"Princes," having brute heads, and riding on horseback.- 

Ninth, the Attendant Devil, or Familiar, who was of 

1 Anatomy of Melancholy, Pt. I. Sec. 2. 

2 See Reginald Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, p. 229. 

"Their first and principal king (which is of the power of the 
East) is called Baell; who, when he is conjured up, appeareth 
with three heads; the first like a toad, the second like a man, 
the third like a cat ; he speaketh with a hoarse voice. He 
maketh a man to go invisible : he hath under his obedience and 
rule sixty and six legions of devils. 

"The first duke under the power of the East is named Agares. 
He cometh up mildly in the likeness of a fair old man " (there is 
something striking in this) " riding upon a crocodile, and carry- 
ing a hawk on his fist. He has under him thirty-one legions. 

" Valefer, alias Malephar, is a strong duke, cometh forth in the 
shape of a lion and the head of a thief. He is very familiar with 
them to whom he maketh himself acquainted, till he hath brought 
them to the gallows ; he ruleth ten legions. 

" Furfur is a great earl, appearing as an Hart with a fiery tail. 
He lieth in everything. 

" Furcas is a knight, and cometh forth in the similitude of a 
cruel man, with a long beard and hoary head. He sitteth on a 
pale horse. 

" Gamigin is a great marquess, and is seen in the form of a little 
horse. 

" Another marquess is a liar and a horse-stealer. ' Zepar, a 
great duke,' makes women incontinent and barren. Berith is a 
' great and a terrible duke,' and ' also a liar.' " 



A TREATISE ON DEVILS 325 




various degrees of rank, from the accomplished imps that 
waited on Faustus and Agrippa, down to the cat of the old 
crone. See Goethe's and Marlowe's tragedies, and The 
Witch of Middleton. 

Tenth and last, the Devil Proper, or devil himself, the 
Apollyon of John Bunyan. He was "the black, man" of 
the nursery and the coal-hole ; and used to be called upon 
to take away children or swallow them up. 1 To his friends 

1 According to the author of Malleus Malefcarum , and " the 
residue of that crew," says Scot, in speaking of the etymology of 
the word devil, " Dia is Duo and Bolus is Morcellus ; whereby they 
gather, that the devil eateth up a man, body and soul, at two 
morsels." — A Discourse concerning Devils and Spirits, Bk. I, chap, 
xxxii, 



326 A TREATISE ON DEVILS 

the witches, he used to appear either as a satyr or sort of 
clergyman, in black clothes, very reverend, dressed as it 
were for the evening. But his proper establishment con- 
sisted of a tail with a sting to it, "horns on his head, fire 
in his mouth, eyes like a bason, fangs like a dog, claws like 
a bear, a skin like a nigger, and a voice roaring like a lion ; 
whereby (quoth Reginald Scot), we start and are afraid 
when we hear one cry Bough." l A facetious churchman, 
being asked why the devil took such a strange liking to old 
women, quoted a passage, in which it had been said of him, 
that he "loved to walk in dry places." Another wag, 
undertaking to show the people the devil himself, " to the 
satisfaction," as Swift terms it, "of the beholders," held 
out to them an empty purse ! A solider account of him has 
never been given. An Italian poet makes mention of a 
devil who dwelt in the smoke of roast meat. 2 

1 Discovery of Witchcraft, p. 85. 

2 Berni. Orlando lnnamorato, Canto li, st. 49. For a thorough 
knowledge of devils and all that has been said of them, the curious 
reader may consult Glanville on Witches, Wierus, De Prcestigiis 
Damonum, Stehelin's Rabbinical Literature, the Lives rf the Saints, and 
above all, Reginald Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, the title of which 
ought to be given at large to do honour to the writer who could 
produce such a work at a period so early : for it was printed in 
1584. But the sapient Scotch monarch had not then come to 
England to encourage people to be as sottish and half-witted as 
himself. Scot's book is entitled " The Discovery of Witchcraft, 
— proving that the compacts and contracts of witches with devils 
and all infernal spirits or familiars are but erroneous novelties 
and imaginary conceptions, &c. Wherein likewise the unchristian 
practices and inhumane dealings of searchers and witch-tryers, upon 
aged, melancholy, and superstitious people, in extorting confessions 
by terrors and tortures, and in devising false marks and symptoms, 
are notably detected; and the knavery of jugglers, conjurers, 
charmers, soothsayers, figure-casters, &c, fully opened and de- 
cyphered ; all which are very necessary to be known for the 
undeceiving of judges, justices, and jurors, before they pass 
sentence upon poor miserable and ignorant people : who are 
frequently consigned, condemned, and executed for witches and 



A TREATISE ON DEVILS 327 

Before the devil's existence was denied people began to 
perceive that considerable doubts might be entertained as 
to the extent of his operations, and how far King James 
and others had a right to palm upon him the offences of 
their " corrupted flesh." 1 We speak in courts of law of 

wizards." It was avowedly to confute these " damnable opinions," 
as he calls them, that King James wrote his Demonologie. Reginald 
Scot was a learned and spirited English gentleman, one of the 
most worthy of that title that ever existed, and ought to be held 
in eternal honour by those who feel interested in the cause of 
humanity. Think of a king putting forth the strength of his 
authority amidst bowing courtiers and churchmen, in order to 
retain a superstition by which it has been calculated that txventy 
thousand people ivere burnt in the course of one hundred and Jtfty years ; 
and then figure to yourself this gallant English gentleman (whose 
book it is said was burnt by the hangman) disdaining in secret 
these attempts of the royal driveller, and looking forward to a 
time when his book would be quoted in favour of common sense 
and feeling, and with the gratitude of posterity. We should take 
care to bear the names of such men in golden preservation ; for 
it is sometimes the lot of the most precious labours to become 
obsolete and unremembered by reason of the very good they have 
done us. We are too apt to fancy, that what is a commonplace 
to us, was the same to our benefactors. 

^Demonologie, Book III., Chapter ii. The King says that those 
who deny the power of a devil would likewise deny the power of 
God, if they could for shame ; that is to say, those who deny the 
existence of the worst contradiction to good, must deny the power 
of the good itself; for such is really his argument. "Since a 
divel," he says, " is the very contrarie opposite to God, there can 
be no better way to know God, than by the contrarie, as by the 
one's power (though a creature) to admire the power of the great 
Creator, by the falsehood of the one to consider the truth of the 
other ; by the injustice of the one to consider the justice of the 
other; and by the cruelty of one to consider the mercifulness 
of the other; and so forth in all the rest of the essence of God, 
and qualities of the Divell." — Id., Book II., Chapter vii. What 
contempt must Scot have felt for such logic as this I There is 
one point founded upon it that might have been granted to the 
king ; viz., that by reading his book you may know by contraries 
what a book ought to be, 



328 A TREATISE ON DEVILS 

criminals being " moved and instigated by the devil " ; but 
nobody but a Methodist doubts nowadays that the real 
instigators are folly and bad education, or poverty, or 
disease. The sight of injustice is also a great instigation. 
Whitfield, in his Life, attributes his aberrations from virtue 
to the devil ; who watched for him, he said, and " took his 
usual advantage ; " — upon which Bishop Lavington observes, 
that the man was only excusing himself at the devil's 
expense, and that Satan had reason to complain, and to 
look upon himself as an ill-used gentleman. To be serious, 
— why should we set up an imaginary malignant being to 
warn our mistakes and our anger with ; to learn how to 
hate and persecute in behalf of the very doctrines that pro- 
test against hatred and persecution ; and to endanger a 
confusion in all our notions of justice, benevolence, and 
common sense ? Sterne, in his Tristram Shandy, has copied 
a form of excommunication once in use against thieves and 
malefactors, and by which their eyes, limbs, and every 
particle of them, body and soul, were damned forever and 
ever in the name of all that was held sacred and good. 1 

] A translation is to be found in Scot, who proceeds to make 
the following remark : " This terrible curse with Bell, Book, and 
Candle, added thereunto, must need work wonders : howbeit, 
among thieves it is not much weighed, among wise and true men it 
is not well liked, to them that are robbed it bringeth small relief: 
the priest's stomach may well be eased, but the goods stolen will 
never the sooner be restored. Hereby is bewrayed both the 
malice and folly of Popish Doctrine, whose uncharitable impiety 
is so impudently published, and in such order uttered, as every 
sentence (if opportunity served) might be proved both heretical 
and diabolical. But I will answer this cruel answer with another 
cure far more mild and civil, performed by as honest a man as he 
that made the other, whereof mention was lately made. 

" So it was that a certain Sir John, with some of his company, 
once went abroad a jetting, and in a moonlight evening robbed a 
miller's weir, and stole all his eels. The poor miller made his 
moan to Sir John himself, who willed him to be quiet ; for he 



A TREATISE ON DEVILS 329 

Dr Slop was employed to read it out loud ; Uncle Toby 
whistled lillibullero all the while in ecstasy of astonishment ; 
observing at one passage, "our armies swore terribly in 
Flanders, but nothing to this: — for my own part I could not 
bear to treat and curse my dogs so ! " Dr Slop continues : 
" May St John the Precursor, and St John the Baptist, and St 
Peter, and St Paul, and St Andrew, and all other Christ's 
Apostles, curse him. May the holy and worshipful com- 
pany of martyrs and confessors, who by their holy works 
are found pleasing to God Almighty, curse him. May the 
holy choir of the Holy Virgin damn him. May all the 
saints who from the beginning of the world and everlasting 
ages are found to be beloved of God, damn him. May he 
be damned wherever he be, whether in the house or stables, 
the garden or the field, or the highway, or in the path, or 
in the wood, or in the water, or in the church. May he be 
cursed in living, in dying. May he be cursed in all the 
faculties of his body. May he be cursed inwardly and out- 
wardly. May he be cursed in the hair of his head. 
May he be cursed in his brains, and in his vertex." 
(That is a sad curse, quoth my father.) "In his temples 
and in his forehead, — in his ears, in his eyebrows, in his 
eyes, in his cheeks, in his jaw-bones, in his nostrils, in his 
arms, in his hands, in his ringers. 

"May he be damned in his mouth, in his breast, in his 
heart and purtenance ! down to the very stomach. 



would so curse the thief and all his confederates, witb Bell, Book, 
and Candle, that they should have small joy of their fish. And 
therefore the next Sunday Sir John got him into the pulpit, with 
surplice on his back and his stole about his neck, and pronounced 
these following in the audience of the people : — 

" All you that stole the miller's Eeles, 

Laudate Domimtm de Ccelis ; 

And all they that consented thereto, 

Benedicamus Domino. 
" Lo, (saith he) there is sauce for your eels, my master," 



330 A TREATISE ON DEVILS 

** May he be cursed in all the joints and articulations of 
his members, from the top of his head to the sole of his 
foot. May there be no soundness in him. 

" May the Son of the living God, with all the glory of 
his majesty" — (here my Uncle Toby, throwing back his 
head, gave a monstrous long, loud nvheiv — <w — iv, some- 
thing betwixt the interjectional whistle of hey-day ! and 
the word itself) — "curse him," continued Dr Slop, "and 
may Heaven, with all the powers which move therein, rise 
up against him, curse and damn him, unless he repent, 
and make satisfaction. Amen. So be it, — so be it. 
Amen." 

" I declare," quoth my Uncle Toby, "my heart would 
not let me curse the devil himself with so much bitterness." 
" He is the father of curses," replied Dr Slop. " So am 
not 1," replied my uncle. ** But he is cursed, and damned 
already, to all eternity," replied Dr Slop. 

" I am SORRY FOR IT," quoth my Uncle Toby. 

" Dr Slop drew up his mouth, and was just beginning to 
return my Uncle Toby the compliment of his ivhu — iv — iv, 
or interjectional whistle, when the door hastily opening in 
the next chapter but one — put an end to the affair." — 
Tristram Shandy, Book III. chap. xi. 

But the affair was not put an end to. It has flourished, 
and brought forth good fruit. When people were led to 
consider that Jews had organs and dimensions like them- 
selves, they first began not to loathe them, then they pitied 
them, and at last they did them justice. A similar process 
of reflection took place in behalf of birds and beasts : it 
was discovered that horses and dogs had limbs to be hurt, 
as well as ourselves ; and it is now doubted by some 
whether we ought to shut in a cage a winged animal, 
whose region is the air. (By and by we shall begin to 
have commiseration for fish, and anglers will cease to think 
themselves the humanest of men.) At length the devil 



A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 331 

himself was done justice to ; and noble-hearted Burns 
finally wished him out of his coal-hole. So 

" Fare you well, auld Nickie-ben ! 
O wad ye tak a thought and men' ! 
Ye aiblins might — 1 dinna ken — 

Still hae a stake — 
I'm wae to think upo' yon den, 

Even for your sake ! " 



A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 

As we have said so much about Devils, we thought we 
could not complete these supernatural discussions better, 
nor leave off with a " pleasanter taste in the mouth," than 
by adding what we know of Angels. We hope it will 
prove like a dessert after the "hot dishes." 

Angel comes from the Greek word Aggelos (pro- 
nounced Angelos), and signifies a messenger. Mercury 
in Hesiod is called the Angel of Jupiter. Any mes- 
senger, literally speaking, is an angel. A ticket-porter 
might write on his card, "Thomas Jones, Angel." A 
beautiful woman, coming to us with an errand of peace 
or joy, is literally, as well as metaphorically, an angel. 
But in modern language (and herein we desire to speak 
with a seriousness becoming the idea of " the sweet and 
loving angels," as Luther calls them 1 ) the word signifies 
one of the multitudes of those winged spirits, who, accord- 
ing to the Jews and Christians, enjoy the beatitude of the 
divine presence, are eternally glorifying it with hymns and 
harpings, and are occasionally despatched to us on messages 
or with aid. Luther is of opinion, that while occupied in 
heaven, they are, nevertheless, fighting for us on earth ; 

1 Table-Talk, 



332 A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 

" for," says he, in his homely way, and with that vein of 
familiarity in his respect, which does not diminish the real 
reverence of enthusiasm, "the angels have long arms." 
But it has been the general opinion of the churches, that 
every man has a guardian angel assigned him, who helps 
him in his ways, encourages his virtues, and supplies proper 
trouble on occasion to turn him from his vice. This is 
the Good Demon of the Platonists ; nor is it possible to 
make inquiry into the nature of the one spirit without 
hearing of the other. 

Nothing is here meant to be insinuated against the 
existence of myriads of heavenly creatures. We have 
the same hope of their existence as we have of thousands 
of other things, good and lovely, and the same tendency 
to disbelieve in their useless opponents. But the most 
orthodox believers may, according to the divines, be too 
anxious and too peremptory on these points ; and therefore 
we shall not follow them in their flights with St Diony- 
sius, who pretended to draw up a peerage of the angelic 
noblesse. We shall not venture to say with the great poet 
(who, after all, made a bad business of it), — 

" Into the heaven of heaven I have presumed 
An earthly guest : " 

neither shall we discuss with the churchmen whether angels 
have or have not bodies ; whether they are always exer- 
cising their understandings ; how long it would take them 
to come down from the eighth heaven, reckoning at the rate 
of a thousand miles an hour ; or how many of them could 
dance on the point of a needle without jostling. A Jesuit, 
of the name of La Cerda, informs us that a single angel 
whirls the heavens, and all the orbs about with it, at the 
rate of 26,000 German miles an hour. 1 We cannot take 
his word for it ; and, indeed, the greater and more angelical 

1 De Excellentia Spiritttum Calestium, chap, ii, 



A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 333 

the hopes of mankind become, the less will they take 
people's words for anything, a dogma by its essence con- 
taining the principles of falsehood, which is the reason why 
so many fine ones come to nothing, and endanger the virtues 
they pretend to support. 1 

Yet, on reflection, we give a list of the alleged hierarchy 
of angels, and of some of their names. The poets, having 
made use of them, have rendered them a warrantable part 
of fiction ; and there is a music in the sound. Milton, in 
the addresses of Satan, does not observe the due order of 
the hierarchy, which stands as follows : — 

The Seraphim who excel in love. 

Cherubim . . knowledge. 

Thrones . . superiority to sin, and in influ- 

ence upon those below them. 

Dominations . . freedom of service and the re- 

gulation of the divine glory 
Virtues . . execution of the divine will. 

Powers . . subjection of evil spirits. 

Principalities are the chief governors of the divine 

messengers. 
Archangels . . chief messengers. 

Angels . . messengers. 

These are the " trinal triplicities " of which Spenser talks ; 
the whole hierarchy consisting of three classes, and every 
class of three sections. Upon the subject of their employ- 
ment round the "throne" of the divine being, we would 
rather not dwell ; our respect for the mystery of the Deity 
being too great, and not choosing to degrade it even to the 
heights of poetry. We may remark, however, that the 
placing Seraphim before Cherubim, — or love before know- 

1 The learned reader need not be informed that the word angel, 
like a great many other words in Scripture, is capable of having 
other interpretations put upon it than that of a winged messenger 
from above. See a work entitled the Oriental Missionary. 



332 A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 

u for," says he, in his homely way, and with that vein of 
familiarity in his respect, which does not diminish the real 
reverence of enthusiasm, "the angels have long arms." 
But it has been the general opinion of the churches, that 
every man has a guardian angel assigned him, who helps 
him in his ways, encourages his virtues, and supplies proper 
trouble on occasion to turn him from his vice. This is 
the Good Demon of the Platonists ; nor is it possible to 
make inquiry into the nature of the one spirit without 
hearing of the other. 

Nothing is here meant to be insinuated against the 
existence of myriads of heavenly creatures. We have 
the same hope of their existence as we have of thousands 
of other things, good and lovely, and the same tendency 
to disbelieve in their useless opponents. But the most 
orthodox believers may, according to the divines, be too 
anxious and too peremptory on these points ; and therefore 
we shall not follow them in their flights with St Diony- 
sius, who pretended to draw up a peerage of the angelic 
noblesse. We shall not venture to say with the great poet 
(who, after all, made a bad business of it), — 

" Into the heaven of heaven I have presumed 
An earthly guest : " 

neither shall we discuss with the churchmen whether angels 
have or have not bodies ; whether they are always exer- 
cising their understandings ; how long it would take them 
to come down from the eighth heaven, reckoning at the rate 
of a thousand miles an hour ; or how many of them could 
dance on the point of a needle without jostling. A Jesuit, 
of the name of La Cerda, informs us that a single angel 
whirls the heavens, and all the orbs about with it, at the 
rate of 26,000 German miles an hour. 1 We cannot take 
his word for it ; and, indeed, the greater and more angelical 

* De Excellentia Spirituum Calestium , chap, ii, 



A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 333 

the hopes of mankind become, the less will they take 
people's words for anything, a dogma by its essence con- 
taining the principles of falsehood, which is the reason why 
so many fine ones come to nothing, and endanger the virtues 
they pretend to support. 1 

Yet, on reflection, we give a list of the alleged hierarchy 
of angels, and of some of their names. The poets, having 
made use of them, have rendered them a warrantable part 
of fiction ; and there is a music in the sound. Milton, in 
the addresses of Satan, does not observe the due order of 
the hierarchy, which stands as follows : — 

The Seraphim who excel in love. 

Cherubim . . knowledge. 

Thrones . . superiority to sin, and in influ- 

ence upon those below them. 

Dominations . . freedom of service and the re- 

gulation of the divine glory 
Virtues . . execution of the divine will. 

Powers . . subjection of evil spirits. 

Principalities are the chief governors of the divine 

messengers. 
Archangels . . chief messengers. 

Angels . . messengers. 

These are the " trinal triplicities " of which Spenser talks ; 
the whole hierarchy consisting of three classes, and every 
class of three sections. Upon the subject of their employ- 
ment round the " throne " of the divine being, we would 
rather not dwell ; our respect for the mystery of the Deity 
being too great, and not choosing to degrade it even to the 
heights of poetry. We may remark, however, that the 
placing Seraphim before Cherubim, — or love before know- 

1 The learned reader need not be informed that the word angel, 
like a great many other words in Scripture, is capable of having 
other interpretations put upon it than that of a winged messenger 
from above. See a work entitled the Oriental Missionary. 



334 A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 

ledge, — can hardly be thought unworthy of anything divine, 
and is a fine moral. The distinction of offices and faculties 
in these lists of angels is, it must be confessed, not always 
very distinct. It is not so in the one before us, and they 
differ in various authors. 1 Of the names of angels, the 
following comprise the most received and the most musical. 
There are four celebrated archangels :— 

Michael, who is said to preside over the East Wind, and 

the Nations in that quarter. 
Raphael ..... the West. 
Gabriel ..... the North. 

Uriel . . . . .the South. 

Whether by accident or system, this assignment of quarters 
is very suitable to the characters given to the respective 
archangels, Michael being the fierce and more dictatorial 
virtue, Raphael "the affable archangel," and Uriel the 
angel of the sun. It has been observed, on a similar 
ground, that the names of the two princes of painting, 
Raphael and Michael Angelo (the most visible angels ever 
possessed by the Romish Church, and very lucky ones for 

1 See Heywood's Hiera.rch.ie of Angels: a Treatise of Angels, by 
John Salkeld, London, 1613; A Theological Discourse of Angels and 
their Ministries, by Benjamin Camfield, etc. ; and for matters rela- 
tive to angels in general, consult also La Cerda, before mentioned, 
and a work entitled Rabbinical Literature, by the Rev. J. P. Steheliri, 
in 2 vols. 8vo, 1748. La Cerda contains a number of celestial 
anecdotes; and Mr Stehelin's work is a curious compilation of 
things fantastic, but, upon the whole, showing a kindliness of 
imagination which Christians would hardly expect from Jews, and 
which they would be more Christian in some points if they would 
imitate. The Jews, for instance, like our sect of Universalists, 
believe that the devils themselves may be saved. There is one 
very grand notion in this book. The Jews believe that there are 
three voices constantly going through the world, unheard of 
mortal ears : the Voice of the globe of the sun, the Voice of the soul 
departing from the body, and the Voice of the murmuring of Rome. This 
is the most magnificent idea of the Roman capital ever conceived. 



A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 335 

her) were singularly expressive of their different qualities, 
as well as of the rank they held in their paradise. Corelli's 
name of Arcangelo was a like felicity ; no musician, except 
Handel, touching forth a more angelical note than he did, 
with his air-drawn bow. Handel, in addition to this, fairly 
sets the angels floating, with his wafting symphonies ; and, 
when he concludes, you lose their feet in heaven. Let the 
reader allow me to mention in this place, as no unsuitable 
one, the divine air of " Waft her, angels," and the still 
diviner one, "There were shepherds abiding in the fields," 
with its Raphaelesque recitative. Nothing can be simpler, 
more touching, more sincere. You are conscious of the 
innocent shepherds keeping their flocks in the cool night. 
Their very looks are painted in the artless notes, and the 
angels speak to them in a few others, equally simple and 
beautiful. 

Other names of angels : — 

Hamabiel. Maion. Ophaniel. 

Ambriel. Malthidiel. Arcan. 

Zamiel. Jeremiel. Zuriel, and 

Varchiel. Ariel. Muriel. 
Jurabatres. 

" El " is a termination, denoting God. Thus, Uriel 
signifies the Light of God ; Raphael, the Medicine of 
God, — the Celestial Healer. These and other angels 
were supposed to preside over the zodiac, the planets, the 
elements, etc., and indeed over everything that could be 
presided over, down to a weed in the grass. The Rabbis 
were of opinion that they made themselves bodies to appear 
in, out of the snow under the Throne of Glory ; and that 
if they were absent from heaven seven days in succession 
they were unable to return. 

It is not our intention to speak of the Fallen Angels or 
of their " Loves." It is mucn easier to conceive a loving 
than a fallen angel ; but our present object is to describe the 



336 A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 

happy winged spirit as he appears to the eye of innocence 
and imagination. Infants, when they smile without an 
apparent cause, are supposed to see angels. It is these 
whose faces we would behold. 

Our guesses as to the nature of any being may be un- 
limited ; but we can paint images of him only from what we 
know, and hence we draw happy spirits in the happiest 
human shape. 

" To whom the angel with a smile that glowed 
Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue." — Milton. 

" Her angel face 
As the great eye of heaven shined bright, 
And made a sunshine in the shady place." — Spenser. 

" Occhi avea neri, e chioma crespa d'oro, 
Angel parea di quei del sommo coro." — Ariosto. 

" Black eyes he had, and sunny curls of hair ; 
He seem'd an angel, newly from the air." 

Ariosto's heroine, who is a personification of Beauty, is 
named Angelica. So we call a beautiful boy a cherub ; and 
though sophisticate ladies may find fault with being called 
angels, and not think it very sincere, it is still one of the 
best and most natural appellations which the rapture of love 
can bestow on beauty and goodness. 

Our friend the Jesuit, above quoted, makes mention 
indeed of old angels. He describes one, who appeared to 
the mother of St Eucherius, and told her that she was about 
to be brought to bed of an archbishop. 1 This venerable 
anticipation looks as much like an old angel as anything 
well can ; but still we cannot fancy an elderly seraph, or a 
cherub of two-and-sixty. Jesuits are famous for having 
odd notions of things divine. They are celebrated in par- 
ticular for not understanding the exact limits of what may 
be feigned and what not : and accordingly, in our friend's 

1 La Cerda, chap, xliii. 






A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 337 

book we have a story of an angel, who imposed himself 
upon a farmer for one of his ploughmen, in order that the 
latter might cultivate his love of the truth at chapel. 1 Yet 
in the same book we have an account of another pious 
person, who, being extremely addicted to angels (" addictis- 
nmus ange/is"), would never tell a lie, not even to save his 
life; that is to say, would not do what the angels would. 
The best story in La Cerda is one which Massinger 
made the ground of his Virgin Martyr. An extract or two 
from the tragedy we keep for the conclusion of this article, 
as the best part of it, and as boys keep the sunny side of 
their apple for the last relish. The angel proper, as the 
heralds would call him, is neither old nor false, but young, 
beautiful, ingenuous, rosy, bright, with wings, and a white 
vest. La Cerda gives us to understand (and here he is 
innocent enough) that he is "sometimes clothed in blue, 
rarely in purple." Some of the poets have made his wings 
to be put on and off at pleasure, and many have painted 
them as of gorgeous colour. 

" Of silver wings he took a shining pair, 

Fringed with gold, unwearied, nimble, swift." — Fairfax's Tasso. 

Cowley, in the Davideis, is still more particular to this 
point, but the passage is in his worst style, and therefore 
must not be quoted. It is doubtful whether the word wore 
in the following passage of Milton does not imply the same 
thing. Speaking of Raphael, when he came down on his 
message to Adam, he says : — 

" Six wings he -wore, to shade 
His lineaments divine: the pair that clad 
Each shoulder broad, came mantling o'er his breast 
With regal ornament : the middle pair 
Girt, like a starry zone, his waist; and round, 
Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold, 
And colours dipt in heaven : the third his feet 

1 La Cerda, chap. ii. 
Y 



338 A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 

Shadowed from either heel with feather'd mail, 
Sky-tinctur'd grain. Like Maia's son he stood, 
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance filled 
The circuit wide." — Par. Lost, Book V. 

Which last image is taken from a beautiful couplet of Fair- 
fax, never to be too often repeated : — 

" On Lebanon at first his foot he set, 

And shook his wings with rosy may-dews wet." 

Again, in the passage where Milton describes Satan in the 
likeness of a cherub : — 

<< And now a stripling cherub he appears 
Not of the prime, yet such as in his face 
Youth smiled celestial, and to every limb 
Suitable grace diffused, so well he feigned. 
Under a coronet, his flowing hair 
In curls on either cheek play'd ; wings he ivore 
Of many a coloured plume, sprinkled with gold ; 
His habit fit for speed succinct, and held 
Before his decent steps a silver wand." 

This description has been much admired ; and indeed Milton 
cannot dilate into any description in which something admir- 
able is not to be found. In gorgeousness of colour his 
angels are not to be surpassed ; yet we cannot help thinking 
that there is something too princely, and conscious, and full- 
dressed : not native enough to the sweetness and simplicity 
of heaven. They do not announce themselves so much by 
the delightfulness of their presence as the dazzling of it, 
which is surely the inferior thing. It is doubtful whether 
Raphael has not too much bird-coating ; and there is some- 
thing in the "silver wand" which the youthful Cherub 
bears before him, which, to our minds, is positively poor and 
in the way. Milton seems to have had a regard for a stick. 
He has given one to Satan to support his uneasy steps over 
the burning soil of Hell ; and here he gives him another in 
heaven to look becoming with. Princes in those times 



A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 339 

walked with a stick — perhaps the poet himself did ; and he 
has, unquestionably shown more regard for the kingly 
character in heaven than he did on earth. His angelic 
notions are full of "regal ornament," of "coronets," and 
kingly state. 

" He, kingly, from his state 
Inclined not. . ." 

says he, speaking of Michael. But they have worse moral 
failures than these. To say nothing of the contradictions 
into which his story compelled him ; and to sum up in one 
specimen all the faults to which polemics had rendered his 
divinity liable, what are we to think of his making his 
angels guilty of positive, gratuitous malignity ? Satan, 
travelling towards earth, comes to a sea of jasper, on which 
is a staircase which descended from heaven. 

" The stairs were then let down, whether to dare 
The fiend by easy ascent, or aggravate 
His sad exclusion from the doors of bliss." 

Book III. v. 553. 

This is a piece of malignity more worthy of hell than 
heaven ; if, indeed, hell could be imagined capable of at 
once being in a state of bliss and desirous of giving sorrow. 
In fact, this is the most infernal passage in Paradise Lost. 
Luckily, it is mere talking : no being could be guilty of a 
mockery so inhuman ; for there is, in reality, no such thing 
as malignity for its own sake. The most wilful inflicters 
of suffering are themselves in a state of suffering, which they 
think to alleviate by thrusting a part of it on others ; and 
angels, having no suffering at all, would be the only true 
devils, if they would act as the poet's slip of the pen has 
here made them. 

There is a pretty passage of an angel in Spenser ; and 
there the heavenly creature is at his proper work : he is 
doing good. The poet has given him pied wings like a 



3 4 o A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 

jay, which is perhaps not so well. They would better have 
suited a Cupid. But the picture is in his happiest manner. 
It is attended with those circumstances of verisimilitude 
which make the most supernatural things appear natural. 
On turning to the passage, I find that Spenser has compared 
his angel to Cupid, and this too in a stanza which is the 
more displaced by reason of the very perfection of its 
paganism. It is as if Poussin had lumped together a Scrip- 
ture piece and a Bacchanal. A pilgrim finds Guyon sleep- 
ing in " a shady delve," and somebody sitting by him. 

" Beside his head there satt a faire young man, 
Of wondrous beauty and of freshest yeares, 
Whose tender bud to blossome new began, 
And flourish faire, above his equall peares ; 
His snowy front, curled with golden heares. 
Like Phoebus' face adorned with sunny rayes, 
Divinely shone ; and two sharpe winged sheares, 
Decked with divers plumes like painted jayes > 
Were fixed at his back, to cut his ayery wayes." 

Faerie Queen, Book II. canto 8. 

There are the wings of Titian's Cupid, in the picture where 
his mother is blinding him. Perhaps it was a consciousness 
to that effect which led the poet into his comparison. We 
omit the latter as unsuitable ; but we must not omit what 
follows. The stranger delivers up his charge to the pilgrim ; 
and then, says the poet, — 

" Eftsoones he gan display 
His painted nimble wings, and vanisht quite away. 
The palmer seeing his left empty place, 
And his slow eies beguiled of their sight, 
Waxe sore arFraid, and standing still a space 
Gaz'd after him, as fowle escapt by flight." 

Where the " blessed bird" goes to (as Dante calls him), 
we do not presume to say ; nor what he does when he has 
ended his journey. 



I 



A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 341 

:i What know we of the blest above 

But that they sing, and that they love? " 

says Waller. To say we know it, is to say a little too 
much ; but to imagine it is reasonable enough, considering 
that singing and loving (provided they be genuine of their 
sort) are two of the highest pleasures on earth, and may be 
fancied to touch upon heaven. Milton has said some fine 
things about the loves of angels, to which we content our- 
selves with referring the reader. Taken out of their context, 
and of that " celestial colloquy sublime," we might do them 
an injustice. The angel, in this article of ours, may be said 
to become our property, as soon as we can descry him with 
earthly eyes, and no sooner ; or we may fancy we hear 
before we see him. 

" And now 'tis like all instruments, 
Now like a lonely flute ; 
And now it is angel's song, 

That bids the heavens be mute.'' 

Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. 

We must humanize everything before we can love it. To 
fancy an angel rising in the east like a star, is making him 
too potent and gigantic. He must come near to us, and in 
our own shape ; must be guarding innocence or consoling 
adversity, or suggesting wisdom and sweeter thoughts to 
those who fancy themselves wicked, or conversing with the 
glad eyes and inarticulate raptures of infancy ; for infants, 
when smiling and babbling to themselves, are supposed to be 
talking with angels. Even those beautiful gorgeous wings, 
in which he is invested by the poets, hardly seem to be an 
apparel in which he is to stay with us. They are for a 
sudden vision, a stoop out of the lustre of heaven. It is 
remarkable that the painters have never' given coloured 
wings to their angels. The temptation would seem to be 
great, — the palette looks like a wing ready made, — and yet 
they have not given way to it. No : the angel is the angel 



342 A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 

of one's infancy, the blooming white-vested boy with the 
spotless wings ; and thus is he painted by the Guidos and 
Correggios. 

We think we see him now, looking out of one of their 
divine pictures, young, blooming, innocent, natural as un- 
conscious perfection, beautiful as truth. He is a boy on a 
noble scale, but still human ; and his large curls are tawny 
with the noons of Paradise. 

An angel is the chorister of heaven, the page of martyr- 
dom, the messenger from the home of mothers. He comes 
to the tears of the patient, and is in the blush of a noble 
anger. He kisses the hand that gives an alms. He talks 
to parents of their departed children, and smoothes the 
pillow of sickness, and supports the cheek of the prisoner 
against the wall, and is the knowledge and comfort which 
a heart has of itself when nobody else knows it, and is the 
playfellow of hope, and the lark of aspiration, and the lily 
in the dusk of adversity. All this we believe him, even 
should we hold his appearance to be a fable, and though we 
deny the letter of a thousand things out of which we would 
extricate the spirit ; for wherever there is goodness and 
imagination, there of necessity are thoughts angelical, winged 
indestructible hopes. The dryest line of the geometer, if 
he knew all, were a wand of as much wonder as Prospero's ; 
or if it were not so, Prospero's itself were none, and our 
most exalted aspirations would still be as warrantable as the 
earth we touch. If anything unwise could be unpardonable, 
the only fault not to be forgiven were dogmatism ; and yet 
where could an angelical thought exist, and forgiveness not 
be discovered ? 

We conclude with the lovely scene out of Massinger. 
Drayton gives us to understand that angels converse in 
poetry. We know not how that may be ; but if ever 
blooming, angelical boy was visible in a book, and talked 01 
paper, it is here. 



A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 343 

Angelo, an Angel, attends Dorothea as a Page. Angelo, 
Dorothea. The time midnight. 
Dor. My book and taper. 
Ang Here, most holy mistress. 

Dor. Thy voice sends forth such music, that I never 
Was ravish'd with a more celestial sound. 
Were every servant in the world like thee, 
So full of goodness, angels would come down 
To dwell with us : thy name is Angelo, 
And like that name thou art. Get thee to rest ; 
Thy youth with too much watching is opprest. 
Aug. No, my dear lady. I could weary stars, 

And force the wakeful moon to loose her eyes, 
By my late watching but to wait on you. 
When at your pray'rs you kneel before the altar, 
Methinks I'm singing with some quire in heaven, 
So blest I hold me in your company. 
Therefore, my most loved mistress, do not bid 
Your boy, so serviceable, to get hence ; 
For then you break his heart. 
Dor. Be nigh me still, then. 

In golden letters down I'll set that day, 
Which gave thee to me. Little did I hope 
To meet such worlds of comfort in thyself, 
This little, pretty body, when I, coming 
Forth of the Temple, heard my beggar-boy, 
My sweet-fac'd godly beggar-boy, crave an alms, 
Which with glad hand I gave, with lucky hand ; 
And when I took thee home, my most chaste bosom 
Methought was filled with no hot wanton fire, 
But with a holy flame, mounting since higher, 
On wings of cherubims, than it did before. 
Aug. Proud am I that my lady's modest eye 

So likes so poor a servant. 
Dor. I have ofFer'd 

Handfuls of gold but to behold thy parents. 
I would leave kingdoms, were I queen of some, 
To dwell with thy good father ; for the son 
Bewitching me so deeply with his presence, 
He that begot him must do't ten times more. 
I pray thee, my sweet boy, show me thy parents ; 
Be not ashamed. 



344 A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 

Ang. I am not : I did never 

Know who my mother was ; but by yon palace, 
Filled with bright heav'nly courtiers, I dare assure you, 
And pawn these eyes upon it, and this hand, 
My father is in heav'n ; and, pretty mistress, 
If your illustrious hour-glass spend his sand 
No worse than yet it doth, upon my life, 
You and I both shall meet my father there, 
And he shall bid you welcome. 

Dor. A bless'd day 1 1 

We had a great mind to conclude with this scene, but 
there is another in the same play which presents us with so 
beautiful a picture of the angel, — somewhat between the 
gorgeousness of the poets in general and the simplicity of 
the painters, — that we cannot resist copying it. Theo- 
philus, the persecutor, who has been the cause of the 
martyrdom of Dorothea, and who is converted and becomes 
a martyr himself, is soliloquizing upon the torture he will 
wreak upon those who differ with him, when Angelo comes 
in with a basket of fruit and flowers. The Roman does 
not see him at first, and so continues talking. 

Theoph. This Christian slut was well, 

A pretty one ; but let such horror follow 

1 "This scene," says an excellent critic, "has beauties of so 
high an order, that with all my respect for Massinger, I did not 
think he had poetical enthusiasm capable of furnishing them. His 
associate, Decker, who wrote old Fortunatus, had poetry enough 
for anything. The very impurities which obtrude themselves 
among the sweet pieties of this play (like Satan among the sons of 
heaven), and which the brief scope of my plan fortunately enables 
me to leave out, have a strength of contrast, a raciness and a glow 
in them, which are above Massinger. They set off the religion of 
the rest, somehow, as Caliban serves to show Miranda." — Specimens 
of English Dramatic Poets, by Charles Lamb. 

Thus it is that fine natures know how to turn fugitive or 
imaginary evil to account, instead of thinking themselves called 
upon to show that they cannot think too much evil about it; as 
some critics have done, whom it were a poor thing to name in so 
sweet a place. 



A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 345 

The next I feed with torments, that when Rome 
Shall hear it, her foundation at the sound 
May feel an earthquake. How now ! \_Mutic. 

Ang. Are you amazed, sir ? 

So great a Roman spirit, and doth it tremble ? 

Theoph. How cam'st thou in? To whom 
Thy business? 
Ang. To you : 

I had a mistress, late sent hence by you 

Upon a bloody errand ; you entreated, 

That when she came in to that blessed garden 

Whither she knew she went, and where now happy, 

She feeds upon all joy, she would send to you 

Some of that garden fruit, and flowers ; which here, 

To have her promise saved, are brought by me. 

Theoph. Cannot I see this garden ? 
Ang. Yes, if the master 

Will give you entrance. [He vanisheth. 

Theoph. 'Tis a tempting fruit — 

And the most bright-cheeked child I ever viewed, — 
Sweet smelling, goodly fruit. What flowers are these? 
In Dioclesian's gardens the most beauteous, 
Compared with these, are weeds : is it not February, 
The second day she died ? frost, ice, and snow, 
Hang on the beard of winter where's the sun 
That gilds the summer? Pretty, sweet boy, say, 
In what country shall a man find this garden ? 
My delicate boy, — gone ! vanished ! Within there, 
Julianus ! Geta ! 

Enter Julianus and Geta. 
Both. My Lord. 
Theoph. Are my gates shut ? 

Geta. And guarded. 
Theoph. Saw you not a boy ? 

Jul. Where? 
Theoph. Here he entered ; a young lad ; 

A thousand blessings danced upon his eyes, 
A smooth-faced, glorious thing, that brought this basket. 
Geta. No, sir ? 
Theoph. Away — but be in reach, if my voice calls you. 

[Exeunt. 



346 A FEW WORDS ON ANGELS 

We need not point out to our readers the " bright- 
cheeked child," the "smooth-faced glorious thing," that 
brings a basket, — a thousand blessings dancing upon his 
eyes ; — but we notice the words that we may enjoy them 
in their company. — And so with this perfect taste cf the 
angel and his Eden fruit, we conclude. 




THE MOUNTAIN OF THE TWO LOVERS 

We forget in what book it was, many years ago, that we 
read the story of a lover who was to win his mistress by 
carrying her to the top of a mountain, and how he did win 
her, and how they ended their days on the same spot. 

We think the scene was in Switzerland ; but the mountain, 
though high enough to tax his stout heart to the uttermost, 
must have been among the lowest. Let us fancy it a good 
lofty hill in the summer time. It was, at any rate, so high, 
that the father of the lady, a proud noble, thought it impos- 
sible for a young man so burdened to scale it. For this 
reason alone, in scorn, he bade him do it, and his daughter 
should be his. 

347 



348 MOUNTAIN OF TWO LOVERS 

The peasantry assembled in the valley to witness so 
extraordinary a sight. They measured the mountain with 
their eyes; they communed with one another, and shook 
their heads ; but all admired the young man ; and some 
of his fellows, looking at their mistresses, thought they 
could do as much. The father was on horseback, apart 
and sullen, repenting that he had subjected his daughter 
even to the show of such a hazard ; but he thought it 
would teach his inferiors a lesson. The young man (the 
son of a small land-proprietor, who had some pretensions 
to wealth, though none to nobility) stood, respectful- 
looking, but confident, rejoicing in his heart that he 
should win his mistress, though at the cost of a noble 
pain, which he could hardly think of as a pain, consider- 
ing who it was that he was to carry. If he died for it, 
he should at least have had her in his arms, and have 
looked her in the face. To clasp her person in that 
manner was a pleasure which he contemplated with such 
transport as is known only to real lovers ; for none others 
know how respect heightens the joy of dispensing with 
formality, and how the dispensing with the formality 
ennobles and makes grateful the respect. 

The lady stood by the side of her father, pale, 
desirous and dreading. She thought her lover would 
succeed, but only because she thought him in every 
respect the noblest of his sex, and that nothing was too 
much for his strength and valour. Great fears came 
over her nevertheless. She knew not what might happen 
in the chances common to all. She felt the bitterness 
of being herself the burden to him and the task ; and 
dared neither to look at her father nor the mountain. She 
fixed her eyes, now on the crowd (which nevertheless 
she beheld not) and now on her hand and her fingers' 
ends, which she doubled up towards her with a pretty 
pretence, — the only deception she had ever used. Once 



MOUNTAIN OF TWO LOVERS 349 

or twice a daughter or a mother slipped out of the crowd, 
and coming up to her, notwithstanding their fears of the lord 
baron, kissed that hand which she knew not what to do with. 

The father said, " Now, sir, to put an end to this mum- 
mery ; " and the lover, turning pale for the first time, took 
up the lady. 

The spectators rejoice to see the manner in which he 
moves off, slow but secure, and as if encouraging his 
mistress. They mount the hill ; they proceed well ; he 
halts an instant before he gets midway, and seems refusing 
something ; then ascends at a quicker rate ; and now being 
at the midway point, shifts the lady from one side to the 
other. The spectators give a great shout. The baron, 
with an air of indifference, bites the tip of his gauntlet, and 
then casts on them an eye of rebuke. At the shout the 
lover resumes his way. Slow but not feebie is his step, yet 
it gets slower. He stops again, and they think they see the 
lady kiss him on the forehead. The women begin to 
tremble, but the men say he will be victorious. He resumes 
again ; he is half-way between the middle and the top ; he 
rushes, he stops, he staggers ; but he does not fall. 
Another shout from the men, and he resumes once more ; 
two-thirds of the remaining part of the way are conquered. 
They are certain the lady kisses him on the forehead and on 
the eyes. The women burst into tears, and the stoutest 
men look pale. He ascends slowlier than ever, but seeming 
to be more sure. He halts, but it is only to plant his foot 
to go on again ; and thus he picks his way, planting his foot 
at every step, and then gaining ground with an effort. The 
lady lifts up her arms, as if to lighten him. See ! he is 
almost at the top ; he stops, he struggles, he moves side- 
ways, taking very little steps, and bringing one foot every 
time close to the other. Now — he is all but on the top ; 
he halts again ; he is fixed ; he staggers. A groan goes 
through the multitude. Suddenly, he turns full front 



350 SPRING 

towards the top ; it is luckily almost a level ; he staggers, 
but it is forward : — Yes : — every limb in the multitude 
makes a movement as if it would assist him : — see at last ! 
he is on the top ; and down he falls flat with his burden. 
An enormous shout! He has won: he has won. Now 
he has a right to caress his mistress, and she is caressing him, 
for neither of them gets up. If he has fainted, it is with 
joy, and it is in her arms. 

The baron put spurs to his horse, the crowd following 
him. Half-way he is obliged to dismount ; they ascend 
the rest of the hill together, the crowd silent and happy, 
the baron ready to burst with shame and impatience. They 
reach the top. The lovers are face to face on the ground, 
the lady clasping him with both arms, his lying on each side. 

" Traitor ! " exclaimed the baron, " thou hast practised 
this feat before, on purpose to deceive me. Arise ! " 
" You cannot expect it, sir," said a worthy man, who was 
rich enough to speak his mind : " Samson himself might 
take his rest after such a deed! " 

" Part them ! " said the baron. 

Several persons went up, not to part them, but to con- 
gratulate and keep them together. These people look 
close ; they kneel down ; they bend an ear ; they bury 
their faces upon them. " God forbid they should ever be 
parted more," said a venerable man; "they never can be." 
He turned his old face, streaming with tears, and looked 
up at the baron : — " Sir, they are dead ! " 



SPRING 

Ah, happy hills ! ah, pleasing shade! 
Ah, fields, beloved in vain! — Gray. 

Hail, beautiful season ! hail, return of the green leaves ! 
hail, violets, daisies and buttercups ! hail, blue sky ; and 



SPRING 351 

ye, white little silver clouds, " gay creatures of the 
elements," the posterity of your turbid sires of winter 
time ! 

Hail, moreover, ye evidences of spring, even in cities ! 
Hail, green in the windows, and on the ladies' caps ! 
Hail, coats instead of great-coats ! Hail, beaux and other 
butterflies ! Hail, the leaving off of fires ; provided, dear 
fires, among my countrymen, ye are left off! Great 
encroachers upon summer time are ye ; mighty disputers of 
the sunshine with May and June ! 

There is a tendency all over the temperate part of 
Europe to anticipate the beauties of spring, — to fancy 
the season more forward than it is, or to complain 
that it is otherwise. I find this in Italy as well as 
in England. Horace Walpole said that it was the 
fashion to say there was no winter in Italy. There is 
certainly a winter sharp enough to startle foreigners ; and 
the spring in Tuscany is far from premature. I have not 
found the weather in either season different from what 
Horace says of the snows in winter, and Virgil of the 
stormy showers in spring. The Primavera, or spring of 
the Italian poets, disappoints expectation as much as the 
Aprils and Mays described by our own. Primavera comes 
in March, and is properly the first part of the vernal season, 
the ver pr'imum of the Latins. The blossom issues forth 
on the trees, the cranes are seen travelling in the sky, the 
hedges are lively with violets and periwinkles ; but it is not 
a season warranting what the poets say of it, and warming 
the blood. Cold winds prevail, as with us ; the snows, 
lingering on the mountains, embitter them, and the rains 
are violent. April commences the true poetical spring, 
and May is spring confirmed, the real season of the " novel li 
amori" the May of the British poets. Whether the 
seasons alter from time to time in different parts of the 
world is a point contested. Most likely they do. But, 



352 SPRING 

for a long time past, the May of our poets is rather June, 
and very often the middle and end of June rather than the 
beginning. For many years it has been common to have 
fires as late as the old King's birthday, the 4th of June. 
What we call spring is indeed spring, literally speaking ; 
and a very beautiful idea the word gives us. The ver of 
the ancients appears to have meant the rising of the sap. 
Our Saxon term is more lively and visible. It is not 
merely the life, but the leaping of the season ; the gladness 
of its pulse. And yet the vivacity belongs rather to nature 
than to us. We have not got rid enough of our colds and 
clothings. 

1 f the season is very fine indeed, the true time of enjoy- 
ment in England is the one that Thomson has selected for 
his Bower of Indolence, — 

" A season atween June and May, 

Half prankt with spring, with summer half embrown'd." 

When the spring came this year in Tuscany, it was a great 
pleasure to me to see the corn, vine and oil, all preparing 
to flourish together, — for the fields are nothing else. What 
are meadows and cornfields in England, are orchards full of 
olives and vines in Tuscany, with the corn growing betwixt 
them. The green corn running in close stripes among the 
olive trees, and the preparations for the budding of the 
vines, — it being the custom here to make trellises of reed- 
work, really elegant in many parts of the hedges, — furnish 
a lively spectacle. But spring, as well as winter, made me 
think of home. I put on my cap and pitched myself in 
those delicious fields, all over daisies and buttercups, which 
go sloping from Hampstead to West End and Kilburn, — 
fields, the representatives of thousands of others all over 
England, and in which I would rather take a walk " atween 
June and May " than in the divinest spot recorded by the 
divinest of southern poets. It is common with persons in 



SPRING 353 

love to fancy that everybody must be happy who lives in 
the society of the object of their attachment. In the same 
manner, when I am compelled to forego the privileges of 
my Cap, and confine myself to wishing without enjoying 
(which is sometimes the case), I cannot help envying the 
reader for his power to go into the places I write of. I 
say to myself, " Now somebody will take it into his head 
to go and look at those fields, or he will go and look at 
those he is more acquainted with ; or he will, or he can, 
go into some English field or other rich with grass and 
powdered with flowers. He will see the hedges ; he will 
see the elms and oaks (there are no elms and oaks here). 
He will, or he may and can, or might, could, would, 
should walk in a wood full of them. Furthermore, he will 
meet with some old friends." 

Reader, if there is any man who has offended you, and 
whom you find it hard to forgive, forgive him, I entreat 
you ; for I forgive you, and you are the most provoking 
person I have known a long time. I could knock the paper 
out of your hand. Don't you sit giggling there, you other 
reader, C. L., A. B., or C, or whatever title please thy god- 
father's ear. Conscious of your power to take a long walk 
through the sun and dust, you take advantage of my weak- 
ness to triumph over me. But, lo ! my Wishing-Cap is on 
me in all its glory. The very mention of your name makes 
me present. I am with you ; walk with you, talk with you. 
It was I who sighed just now while you were reading. 
Reader, we are reconciled and together. 

Fortunately I am not of a temper to make the worst of 
any situation I happen to be cast in. And I look upon 
it as a reward for my love of Nature that I have never been 
in a situation in which I had not some glimpse of her to 
console me. Even in prison I had a little garden to myself, 
and raised my own heart's-ease. It may not be the most 
grateful thing in the world to think of a jail while strolling 

z 



3 94 SPRING 

about the most classical ground in Tuscany. I confess I 
think of it very often. But Nature will excuse me, because 
my dejection is owing to my love. If I had not loved her 
so much at home, I should not miss, as I do, the old home- 
stead. I do what I can. I think of Petrarch and 
Boccaccio, of Milton and Galileo, and Fiesole, which I see 
from my window, and which is a common boundary to my 
walks. I endeavour to keep the vines and the olive trees 
new to me. Besides Virgil and the Italy of books, I make 
the olives remind me of Athens, of Plato, and Homer, and 
Sophocles, and Socrates, and a still more reverend Name in 
another country, who went up into the mount of olives to 
pray. A Dominican convent is a little in my way, with its 
inscription in honour of the fiery saint, " the destroyer of 
heretics ; " but the friars no longer inhabit it, and I endeavour 
to consider even the Inquisition as a violent note struck in 
the ears of mankind to make them attend to the doctrine it 
contradicted. Philosophy has separated the doctrine from 
its abuse, and the Inquisition is no more. I think of the 
gayer sort of abuses, the red side of their cheek, the jollity 
of a refectory. Pope's picture is before me, of 

"Happy convents, buried deep in vines, 
Where slumber abbots purple as their wines." 

(A couplet as plump and painted as the subject.) The 
transition to Horace and Anacreon is a pleasing necessity. 
I am in the very thick of the vines of Redi, the author of 
the Bacchus in Tuscany. His Bacchus is as flourishing a 
god as ever, and sworn by as devoutly, though the saints 
have displaced his image. Florence, at a little distance, 
meets the turn of my eye at every opening of the trees. In 
short, I am in a world of poetry and romance, of vines and 
olives, and myrtles (which grow wild), of blue mountains 
and never-ending orchards, with a beautiful city in the middle 
of it. What signifies ? I think of an English field in a 




^sfilr 



SPRING 357 

sylvan country, a cottage and oaks in the corner, a path and 
a stile, and a turf full of daisies ; and a child's book with a 
picture in it becomes more precious to me than all the land- 
scapes of Claude. 

I intended to sprinkle this article with some flowers out 
of the Italian poets ; but positively I will not do it. They 
are not good. They are not true. The grapes are sour. 
Commend me to the cockney satisfactions of Chaucer, 
Spenser, and Milton, who talk of "merry London," of 
lying whole hours looking at the daisies, and of walking out 
on Sunday mornings to enjoy the daisies and green fields. 
There are no daisies here that I can see, except those 
belonging to the Grand Duke. What is a daisy belonging 
to a duke ? Nature is not to be put upon a gentleman's 
establishment. The other fine houses do not impose upon 
me. They want comfort and fire-places, and instead of parks, 
and other natural pieces of ground about them, have vines and 
olives, vines and olives without end. The peasants are all 
vine-dressers and olive-squeezers. You meet a piece of a cow 
occasionally on your table ; but a good, handsome, live 
animal, with a low, I have not encountered for many months. 
You must go to Lombardy for a pasture. There are goats, 
very large and bucolic ; but goats in England are poor and 
small, which is the proper goat, and renders a kid pathetic. 
The only one I have a respect for is the companion of our 
voyage, given us by a friend, and preserved through various 
vicissitudes for her sake. A dog belonging to an acquaint- 
ance of ours inhospitably bit her ear off, and the storms at 
sea frightened away her milk. But she now reposes for life, 
like a matron, enjoying herself among scenes more native to 
her palate than England itself. 

If the sky in England would only mitigate a little of its 
clouds and fogs in favour of one of its country-women, and 
of a modest demi-exotic, who loves a green field better 
than all the sugar-canes of his ancestors . . . But what 



358 SPRING 

signifies talking ? Suffice it, that an Englishman in Italy, 
who loves Italian poetry, and is obliged to be grateful to 
Italian skies, assures his beloved countrymen (who are not 
always sensible of the good things they have about them) 
that there is nothing upon earth so fine as a good, rich 
English meadow in summer time. That English French- 
man, La Fontaine, is of the same opinion ; for when he 
speaks with rapture of a bit of turf, and says there is 
nothing to equal it, it must be recollected that such turf is 
more native to England than to France ; and so he would 
have told us had he come over to England, as he ought to 
have done, and taken a stroll in our fields with his friend, 
St Evremond. Even a Tuscan's idea of a garden is not 
complete without a piece of turf, though the podere, or 
farm, encroaches everywhere, and pounds and shillings 
must be planted in the shape of olive trees. A garden 
in the English taste is a " miracolo " and a " paradiso ; " 
their poetry rises within them at the sight of it, but they 
think this is only for princes and grand dukes. Yet 
Horace could not dispense with his grass and his oak trees ; 
and the valley which I look upon from my window 
sparkles in the Decameron with a perpetual green. Nature 
inspires great authors, and they repay her by rescuing her 
very self from oblivion, and keeping her transitory pictures 
fresh in our hearts. They, thank God, as well as the 
fields, are Nature ; and so is every great and kindly aspira- 
tion we possess. 



TWELFTH NIGHT 




A STREET PORTRAIT SHAKSPEARE S PLAY RECOLLECTIONS 

OF A TWELFTH NIGHT 

Christmas goes out in fine style,— with Twelfth Night. 
It is a finish worthy of the time. Christmas Day was the 
morning of the season ; New Year's Day the middle of it, 
or noon ; Twelfth Night is the night, brilliant with innumer- 
able planets of Twelfth-cakes. The whole island keeps 
court ; nay, all Christendom. All the world are kings and 
queens. Everybody is somebody else ; and learns at once 
to laugh at, and to tolerate, characters different from his 
own, by enacting them. Cakes, characters, forfeits, lights, 
theatres, merry rooms, little holiday faces, and, last not least, 
the painted sugar on the cakes, so bad to eat but so fine to 
look at, useful because it is perfectly useless except for a 
sight and a moral, — all conspire to throw a giddy splendour 

359 



360 TWELFTH NIGHT 

over the last night of the season, and to send it to bed in 
pomp and colours, like a Prince. 

And not the least good thing in Twelfth Night is, that 
we see it coming for days beforehand, in the cakes that 
garnish the shops. We are among those who do not " like 
a surprise," except in dramas (and not too much of it even 
there, nor unprepared with expectation) . We like to know 
of the good things intended for us. It adds the pleasure of 
hope to that of possession. Thus we eat our Twelfth-cake 
many times in imagination before it comes. Every pastry- 
cook's shop we pass, flashes it upon us. 

Coming Tivelfth-cakes cast their shadows before ; 

if shadows they can be called, which shade have none ; so 
full of colour are they, as if Titian had invented them. 
Even the little ragged boys who stand at those shops by 
the hour, admiring the heaven within, and are destined to 
have none of it, get, perhaps, from imagination alone, a 
stronger taste of the beatitude, than many a richly-fed 
palate, which is at the mercy of some particular missing relish, 
— some touch of spice or citron, ora" leetle more " egg. 

We believe we have told a story of one of those urchins 
before, but it will bear repetition, especially as a strong relish 
of it has come upon us, and we are tempted to relate it at 
greater length. There is nothing very wonderful or epi- 
grammatic in it, but it has to do with the beatific visions of 
the pastry-shops. Our hero was one of those equivocal 
animal-spirits of the streets, who come whistling along, you 
know not whether thief or errand-boy, sometimes with 
bundle and sometimes not, in corduroys, a jacket, and a cap 
or bit of hat, with hair sticking through a hole in it. His 
vivacity gets him into scrapes in the street, and he is not 
ultra-studious of civility in his answers. If the man he 
runs against is not very big, he gives him abuse for abuse 
at once ; if otherwise, he gets at a convenient distance, and 






TWELFTH NIGHT 361 

: < Eh, stupid ! " or " Can't you see before 
you?" or "Go, and get your face washed." This last is 
a favourite saying of his, out of an instinct referable to his 
own visage. He sings " Hokee-pokee " and a " Shiny 
Night," varied occasionally with an uproarious " Rise, 
gentle Moon," or " Coming through the Rye." On winter 
evenings, you may hear him indulging himself, as he goes 
along, in a singular undulation of howl ; — a sort of gargle, — as 
if a wolf were practising the rudiments of a shake. This he 
delights to do more particularly in a crowded thoroughfare, 
as though determined that his noise should triumph over 
every other, and show how jolly he is, and how independent 
of the ties to good behaviour. If the street is a quiet one, 
and he has a stick in his hand (perhaps a hoop-stick), he 
accompanies the howl with a run upon the gamut of the 
iron rails. He is the nightingale of mud and cold. If he 
gets on in life, he will be a pot-boy. At present- as we 
said before, we hardly know what he is ; but his mother 
thinks herself lucky if he is not transported. 

Well ; one of these elves of the pave — perplexers of 
Lord Mayors, and irritators of the police — was standing 
one evening before a pastry-cook's shop- window, flattening 
his nose against the glass, and watching the movements 
of a school-boy who was in the happy agony of selecting the 
best bun. He had stood there ten minutes before the boy 
came in, and had made himself acquainted with all the eat- 
ables lying before him, and wondered at the slowness, and 
apparent indifference, of jaws masticating tarts. His in- 
terest, great before, is now intense. He follows the new- 
comer's eye and hand, hither and thither. His own arm 
feels like the other's arm. He shifts the expression of his 
mouth and the shrug of his body, at every perilous approxi- 
mation which the chooser makes to a second-rate bun. He 
is like a bowler following the nice inflections of the bias ; 
for he wishes him nothing but success ; the occasion is too 



362 TWELFTH NIGH/T 

great for envy ; he feels all the generous sympathy of a 
knight of old, when he saw another within an ace of 
winning some glorious prize, and his arm doubtful of the 
blow. 

At length the awful decision is made, and the bun laid 
hands on. 

" Yah ! you fool," exclaims the watcher, bursting with 
all the despair and indignation of knowing boyhood, " you 
have left the biggest J " 

Twelfth-cake and its king and queen are in honour of 
the crowned heads who are said to have brought presents 
to Jesus in his cradle — a piece of royal service not necessary 
to be believed in by good Christians, though very proper 
to be maintained among the gratuitous decorations with 
which good and poetical hearts willingly garnish their faith. 
" The Magi, or Wise Men, are vulgarly called (says a note 
in Brand's Popular Antiquities, quarto edition by Ellis, p. 19) 
the three kings of Collen (Cologne). The first, named 
Melchior, an aged man with a long beard, offered gold ; 
the second, Jasper, a beardless youth, offered frankincense ; 
the third, Balthaser, a black or Moor, with a large spreading 
beard, offered myrrh." This picture is full of colour, and 
has often been painted. The word Epiphany ( E-T/£>ai>s/a, 
super apparitio, an appearance from above), alludes to the 
star which is described in the Bible as guiding the Wise 
Men. In Italy, the word has been corrupted into Beffania, 
or Beffana (as in England it used to be called, Piffany) ; 
and Beffana, in some parts of that country, has come to 
mean an old fairy, or Mother Bunch, whose figure is carried 
about the streets, and who rewards or punishes children at 
night by putting sweetmeats, or stones and dirt, into a 
stocking hung up for the purpose near the bed's head. 
The word Beffa, taken from this, familiarly means a trick 
or mockery put upon any one: — to such base uses may come 
the most splendid terms ! Twelfth Day, like the other 



TWELFTH NIGHT 363 

old festivals of the church of old, has had a link or 
connection found for it with Pagan customs, and has been 
traced to the Saturnalia of the ancients, when people drew 
lots for imaginary kingdoms. Its observation is still kept 
up, with more or less ceremony, all over Christendom. In 
Paris, they enjoy it with their usual vivacity. The king 
there is chosen, not by drawing a paper as with us, but by 
the lot of a bean which falls to him, and which is put into 
the cake : and great ceremony is observed when the king 
or the queen " drink " ; which once gave rise to a jest, that 
occasioned the damnation of a play of Voltaire's. The 
play was performed at this season, and a queen in it having 
to die by poison, a wag exclaimed with Twelfth Night 
solemnity, when her Majesty was about to take it, " The 
Queen drinks." The joke was infectious ; and the play 
died, as well as the poor queen. 

Many a pleasant Twelfth Night have we passed in our 
time ; and such future Twelfth Nights as may remain to 
us shall be pleasant, God and good-will permitting : for 
even if care should be round about them, we have no notion 
of missing these mountain-tops of rest and brightness, on 
which people may refresh themselves during the stormiest 
parts of life's voyage. Most assuredly will we look 
forward to them, and stop there when we arrive, as 
though we had not to begin buffeting again the next day. 
No joy or consolation that heaven or earth affords us 
will we ungratefully pass by; but prove, by our accep- 
tance and relish of it, that it is what it is said to be, 
and that we deserve to have it. " The child is father 
to the man ; " and a very foolish-grown boy he is, and 
unworthy of his sire, if he is not man enough to know 
to be like him. What ! shall he go and sulk in a corner 
because life is not just what he would have it ? Or shall 
he discover that his dignity will not bear the shaking of 
holiday merriment, being too fragile and likely to tumble 



364 TWELFTH NIGHT 

to pieces ? Or lastly, shall he take himself for too good 
and perfect a person to come within the chance of con- 
tamination from a little ultra life and Wassail-bowl, and 
render it necessary to have the famous question thrown 
at his stately and stupid head — 

"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be 
no more cakes and ale ? " 

This passage is in " Twelfth Night," the last play (be 
it never forgotten) 1 which Shakspeare is understood to have 
written, and which shows how in his beautiful and universal 
mind the belief in love, friendship and joy, and all good 
things, survived his knowledge of all evil, — affording us an 
everlasting argument against the conclusions of minor men 
of the world, and enabling the meanest of us to dare to 
avow the same faith. 

Here is another lecture to false and unseasonable notions 
of gravity, in the same play,— 

"1 protest (quoth the affected steward Malvolio) I take these 
wise men that crow so at these set kind of fools, to be no better 
than the fools' zanies. 

< 4 Oh (says the Lady Olivia), you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, 
and taste with a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless, 
and of free disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts, that 
you deem cannon-bullets." 

This is the play in which are those beautiful passages 
about music, love, friendship, &c, which have as much 
of the morning of life in them as any that the great 
poet ever wrote, and are painted with as rosy and wet a 
pencil : — 

" If music be the food of love," &c. 

" Away before me to sweet beds of flowers ; 
Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers." 

1 This opinion of Malone's has been ably set aside by Mr Knight. 
The spirit of the Shakspearian wisdom still however remains. 



TWELFTH NIGHT 3 6 5 

" She never told her love, 
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, 
Feed on her damask cheek," &c. 

« I hate ingratitude more in a man," 
says the refined and exquisite Viola, 

"Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, 
Or any taint of vice, whose strong corruption 
Inhabits our frail blood." 

And again, 

« In nature there's no blemish, but the mind 

[that is to say, the faults of the mind ;] 

« None can be calVd deform' d but the unkind:' 

The play of Twelfth Night, with proper good taste, is 

generally performed, at the theatres, on Twelfth Night. 

There is little or nothing belonging to the occasion in it, 

except a set of merry-makers who carouse all night, and 

sing songs enough to "draw three souls out of one weaver." 

It is evident that Shakspeare was at a loss for a title to his 

play, for he has called it Twelfth Night, or What Ton Will ; 

but the nocturnal revels reminded him of the anniversary 

which, being the player and humorist that he was, and 

accustomed, doubtless, to many a good sitting-up, appears 

to have stood forth prominently among his recollections 

of the year. So that it is probable he kept up his Twelfth 

Night to the last :— assuredly he kept up his merry and 

romantic characters, his Sir Tobies and his Violas. And, 

keeping up his stage faith so well, he must needs have kept 

up his home faith. He could not have done it otherwise. 

He would invite his Stratford friends to " king and queen," 

and, however he might have looked in face, would still 

have felt young in heart towards the budding daughters of 

his visitors, the possible Violas perhaps of some love-story 



366 TWELFTH NIGHT 

of their own, and not more innocent in "the last recesses 
of the mind " than himself. 

We spent a Twelfth Night once, which, by common 
consent of the parties concerned, was afterwards known by 
the name of the Twelfth Night. It was doubted among 
us, not merely whether ourselves, but whether anybody 
else, ever had such a Twelfth Night :— 

" For never since created cake, 
Met such untiring force, as named with these 
Could merit more than that small infantry, 
Which goes to bed betimes. " 

The evening began with such tea as is worth mention, 
for we never knew anybody make it like the maker. Dr 
Johnson would have given it his placidest growl of appro- 
bation. Then, with piano-forte, violin, and violoncello 
came Handel, Corelli, and Mozart. Then followed the 
drawing for king and queen, in order that the "small 
infantry" might have their due share of the night, without 
sitting up too too-late (for a reasonable « too-late " is to 
be allowed once and away). Then games, of all the 
received kinds, forgetting no branch of Christmas customs. 
And very good extempore blank verse was spoken by some 
of the court (for our characters imitated a court), roc 
unworthy of the wit and dignity of Tom Thumb. Then 
came supper, and all characters were soon forgotten but 
the feasters' own ; good and lively souls, and festive all 
both male and female,— with a constellation of the brightest 
eyes that we had ever seen met together. This fact was 
so striking, that a burst of delighted assent broke forth, 
when Moore's charming verses were struck up : 

"To ladies' eyes a round, boys, 

We can't refuse, we can't refuse ; 
For bright eyes so abound, boys, 

'Tis hard to choose, 'tis hard to choose." 



TWELFTH NIGHT 367 

The bright eyes, the beauty, the good humour, the wine, 
the wit, the poetry (for we had celebrated wits and poets 
among us, as well as charming women), fused all hearts 
together in one unceasing round of fancy and laughter, till 

breakfast, to which we adjourned in a room full of books, 

the authors of which might almost have been waked up and 
embodied, to come among us. Here, with the bright eyes 
literally as bright as ever at six o'clock in the morning (we 
all remarked it), we merged one glorious day into another, 
as a good omen (for it was also fine weather, though in 
January) ; and as luck and our good faith would have it, 
the door was no sooner opened to let forth the ever-joyous 
visitors, than the trumpets of a regiment quartered in the 
neighbourhood struck up into the morning air, seeming to 
blow forth triumphant approbation, and as if they sounded 
purely to do us honour, and to say, " You are as early and 
untired as we." 

We do not recommend such nights to be "resolved on," 
much less to be made a system of regular occurrence. They 
should flow out of the impulse, as this did; for there was no 
intention of sitting up so late. But so genuine was that 
night, and so true a recollection of pleasure did it leave upon 
the minds of all who shared it, that it has helped to stamp 
a seal of selectness upon the house in which it was passed, 
and which, for the encouragement of good-fellowship and 
of humble aspirations towards tree-planting, we are here 
; icited to point out ; for by the same token the writer of 
these papers planted some plane-trees within the rails by the 
garden-gate (selecting the plane in honour of the Genius of 
Domesticity, to which it was sacred among the Greeks) ; 
and anybody who does not disdain to look at a modest 
tenement for the sake of the happy hours that have been 
spe. in it, may know it by those trees, as he passes along the 
row of houses called York Buildings, in the New Road, 
Marylebone. A man may pique himself without vanity 



368 TWELFTH NIGHT 

upon having planted a tree ; and, humble as our performance 
has been that way, we confess we are glad of it, and have 
often looked at the result with pleasure. The reader would 
smile, perhaps sigh (but a pleasure would or should be at 
the bottom of his sigh), if he knew what consolation we 
had experienced in some very trying seasons, merely from 
seeing those trees growing up, and affording shade and 
shelter to passengers, as well as a bit of leafiness to the 
possessor of the house. Every one should plant a tree who 
can. 1 It is one of the cheapest, as well as easiest, of all 
tasks ; and if a man cannot reckon upon enjoying the shade 
much himself (which is the reason why trees are not planted 
everywhere), it is surely worth while to bequeath so pleasant 
and useful a memorial of himself to others. They are 
green footsteps of our existence, which show that we have 
not lived in vain. 

"Dig a well, plant a tree, write a book, and go to 
heaven," says the Arabian proverb. We cannot exactly 
dig a well. The parish authorities would not employ us. 
Besides, wells are not so much wanted in England as in 
Arabia, nor books either ; otherwise we should be two- 
thirds on our road to heaven already. But trees are 
wanted, and ought to be wished for, almost everywhere ; 
especially amidst the hard brick and mortar of towns ; so 
that we may claim at least one-third of the way, having 
planted more than one tree in our time ; and if our books 
cannot wing our flight much higher (for they never pre- 
tended to be anything greater than birds singing among the 
trees), we have other merits, thank Heaven, than our own 
to go upon ; and shall endeavour to piece out our frail and 
most imperfect ladder with all the good things we can love 
and admire in God's creation. 

1 Young trees from nursery-grounds are very cheap, and cost 
less than flowers. 

TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 



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